Nancy Franklin's article in this week's New Yorker is a paean to PBS documentaries, which I do sometimes find admirable but not necessarily, you know, paean-worthy -- but I like what she says to start with:
One day in mid-April, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, still overseas, said, “To our viewers, here’s your chance to weigh in on the war in Iraq. Our Web question of the day is this: Where do you think Saddam Hussein is?” We were given three choices—hiding in Iraq, dead, left the country—and were encouraged to log on and vote with our fingers. Cable news has a habit of treating viewers like children on a long car trip, giving us diverting, time-killing games to keep us focussed on the TV instead of thinking our own thoughts or punching our little brother. Count the out-of-state license plates; tell us where you think Saddam Hussein is.
Monday, May 19, 2003
I don't really understand why people hate Ari Fleischer so much. Getting angry at Ari is like blaming Goodyear if you're trapped under the wheels of a bus -- the blame lies with the idiot who's driving. Does Ari Fleischer dish out lies and abuse? Sure. That's his job. That's what Bush et al. hired him to do. His replacement will be just as bad, if not worse.
He'll get in a little R&R over the summer and still have a year to crank out a book that will come out just in time for the '04 elections. Meanwhile, Fox News will hire him and he'll deliver "fair, balanced" coverage of the presidential campaign. Do I have links for this? No, I'm just making educated guesses.
He'll get in a little R&R over the summer and still have a year to crank out a book that will come out just in time for the '04 elections. Meanwhile, Fox News will hire him and he'll deliver "fair, balanced" coverage of the presidential campaign. Do I have links for this? No, I'm just making educated guesses.
The New York Times/Jayson Blair affair made the cover of Newsweek? For the love of God, why? Right-wing Times-haters must be beside themselves with glee, but why does Newsweek think the average American gives a damn?
Consider the fact that, despite gobs of publicity, the new novel by that other plagiarist, Stephen Glass -- you know, the white one, the one whose compulsive dishonesty didn't lead to suggestions that fewer members of his ethnic group belong in newsrooms -- is, as I write this, #4,196 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. That means it's not selling much better than, say, Edgar A. Falk's 1,001 Ideas to Create Retail Excitement. In other words, the public isn't buying. I don't think the general public cares if one journalist and/or news organization screws up, beyond noting that it happened and expecting all concerned to try to get right what they got wrong -- and, really, the general public shouldn't care.
Consider the fact that, despite gobs of publicity, the new novel by that other plagiarist, Stephen Glass -- you know, the white one, the one whose compulsive dishonesty didn't lead to suggestions that fewer members of his ethnic group belong in newsrooms -- is, as I write this, #4,196 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. That means it's not selling much better than, say, Edgar A. Falk's 1,001 Ideas to Create Retail Excitement. In other words, the public isn't buying. I don't think the general public cares if one journalist and/or news organization screws up, beyond noting that it happened and expecting all concerned to try to get right what they got wrong -- and, really, the general public shouldn't care.
Remember the reverse domino theory? George Packer summarized it in The New York Times Magazine in March:
Both the Arab world and official American attitudes toward it need to be jolted out of their rut. An invasion of Iraq would provide the necessary shock, and a democratic Iraq would become an example of change for the rest of the region. Political Islam would lose its hold on the imagination of young Arabs as they watched a more successful model rise up in their midst. The Middle East's center of political, economic and cultural gravity would shift from the region's theocracies and autocracies to its new, oil-rich democracy. And finally, the deadlock in which Israel and Palestine are trapped would end as Palestinians, realizing that their Arab backers were now tending their own democratic gardens, would accept compromise. By this way of thinking, the road to Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh and Jerusalem goes through Baghdad.
Er, not quite:
A suicide bomber attacked a northern Israel shopping center Monday, killing at least four other people and wounding 15, police said. It was the fifth anti-Israeli suicide bombing in three days....
--AP
Both the Arab world and official American attitudes toward it need to be jolted out of their rut. An invasion of Iraq would provide the necessary shock, and a democratic Iraq would become an example of change for the rest of the region. Political Islam would lose its hold on the imagination of young Arabs as they watched a more successful model rise up in their midst. The Middle East's center of political, economic and cultural gravity would shift from the region's theocracies and autocracies to its new, oil-rich democracy. And finally, the deadlock in which Israel and Palestine are trapped would end as Palestinians, realizing that their Arab backers were now tending their own democratic gardens, would accept compromise. By this way of thinking, the road to Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh and Jerusalem goes through Baghdad.
Er, not quite:
A suicide bomber attacked a northern Israel shopping center Monday, killing at least four other people and wounding 15, police said. It was the fifth anti-Israeli suicide bombing in three days....
--AP
Newsday reports this:
Well-informed court observers say that there could be two Supreme Court resignations next month, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, bringing the greatest upheaval on the court in 32 years.
Rehnquist's resignation is considered likely, though not certain, while O'Connor's is considered likely by some court insiders and less so by others.
The White House, however, is preparing for the possibility of two or three vacancies, because if Rehnquist is replaced by a sitting justice and O'Connor also goes, two seats but three positions will be open.
Yet another seat could open up if Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 83, retires, but that is considered unlikely.
Think things are going to get ugly? Consider this, and realize how ugly they could get:
While the speculation in Washington is that Justice Antonin Scalia would be elevated to chief justice, objections are being raised within the administration because of his age. Though Scalia is a very youthful 67, some feel a younger person should become chief justice to ensure long-term impact.
For some of the highly ideological conservatives who have, at least until now, held sway over President George W. Bush's court nominations, that person would be Justice Clarence Thomas, 54, who if anything has positioned himself to the right of Scalia. They say that despite his controversial background, the White House has not yet dismissed the idea.
I really think this could happen -- followed by a massive Right-Wing Conspiracy Message Discipline Special in which GOP apparatchiks use every print and broadcast outlet available to denounce everyone who says a discouraging word about Thomas as a racist (or, if nonwhite, as a dweller on the Democrats' "plantation").
Oh, and, of course, if Thomas is nominated, I'd like a dollar for every media reference to the choice as "bold."
The article lists possible nominees -- though I wonder if the Bushies are going to throw a curveball at us and nominate Viet Dinh for something. Dinh came to the U.S. as a refugee, which makes him the perfect human-interest story for the GOP. And he's ideologically perfect, too: He's a Federalist Society honcho who recently left the Justice Department, where he was, as AP notes, "a key author of laws increasing government enforcement and surveillance powers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks." It's relatively easy for Democrats to find nonwhites who will denounce Clarence Thomas or Miguel Estrada. I don't think they could manage to fight off Dinh. (Dinh's really young, so maybe it's not his time yet, but choosing someone of his age would be "bold," too.)
Well-informed court observers say that there could be two Supreme Court resignations next month, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, bringing the greatest upheaval on the court in 32 years.
Rehnquist's resignation is considered likely, though not certain, while O'Connor's is considered likely by some court insiders and less so by others.
The White House, however, is preparing for the possibility of two or three vacancies, because if Rehnquist is replaced by a sitting justice and O'Connor also goes, two seats but three positions will be open.
Yet another seat could open up if Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 83, retires, but that is considered unlikely.
Think things are going to get ugly? Consider this, and realize how ugly they could get:
While the speculation in Washington is that Justice Antonin Scalia would be elevated to chief justice, objections are being raised within the administration because of his age. Though Scalia is a very youthful 67, some feel a younger person should become chief justice to ensure long-term impact.
For some of the highly ideological conservatives who have, at least until now, held sway over President George W. Bush's court nominations, that person would be Justice Clarence Thomas, 54, who if anything has positioned himself to the right of Scalia. They say that despite his controversial background, the White House has not yet dismissed the idea.
I really think this could happen -- followed by a massive Right-Wing Conspiracy Message Discipline Special in which GOP apparatchiks use every print and broadcast outlet available to denounce everyone who says a discouraging word about Thomas as a racist (or, if nonwhite, as a dweller on the Democrats' "plantation").
Oh, and, of course, if Thomas is nominated, I'd like a dollar for every media reference to the choice as "bold."
The article lists possible nominees -- though I wonder if the Bushies are going to throw a curveball at us and nominate Viet Dinh for something. Dinh came to the U.S. as a refugee, which makes him the perfect human-interest story for the GOP. And he's ideologically perfect, too: He's a Federalist Society honcho who recently left the Justice Department, where he was, as AP notes, "a key author of laws increasing government enforcement and surveillance powers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks." It's relatively easy for Democrats to find nonwhites who will denounce Clarence Thomas or Miguel Estrada. I don't think they could manage to fight off Dinh. (Dinh's really young, so maybe it's not his time yet, but choosing someone of his age would be "bold," too.)
More vandalized culture in Iraq?
One of the greatest wonders of civilisation, and probably the world's most ancient structure - the Sumerian city of Ur in southern Iraq - has been vandalised by American soldiers and airmen, according to aid workers in the area.
They claim that US forces have spray-painted the remains with graffiti and stolen kiln-baked bricks made millennia ago....
Ur is believed by many to be the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. It was the religious seat of the civilisation of Sumer at the dawn of the line of dynasties which ruled Mesopotamia starting about 4000 BC. Long before the rise of the Egyptian, Greek or Roman empires, it was here that the wheel was invented and the first mathematical system developed. Here, the first poetry was written, notably the epic Gilganesh, a classic of ancient literature....
--Observer (U.K.)
(Thanks again to the Rational Enquirer.)
One of the greatest wonders of civilisation, and probably the world's most ancient structure - the Sumerian city of Ur in southern Iraq - has been vandalised by American soldiers and airmen, according to aid workers in the area.
They claim that US forces have spray-painted the remains with graffiti and stolen kiln-baked bricks made millennia ago....
Ur is believed by many to be the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. It was the religious seat of the civilisation of Sumer at the dawn of the line of dynasties which ruled Mesopotamia starting about 4000 BC. Long before the rise of the Egyptian, Greek or Roman empires, it was here that the wheel was invented and the first mathematical system developed. Here, the first poetry was written, notably the epic Gilganesh, a classic of ancient literature....
--Observer (U.K.)
(Thanks again to the Rational Enquirer.)
The Los Angeles Times reports this:
At least 1,700 Iraqi civilians died and more than 8,000 were injured in the battle for the Iraqi capital, according to a Los Angeles Times survey of records from 27 hospitals in the capital and its outlying districts.
In addition, undocumented civilian deaths in Baghdad number at least in the hundreds and could reach 1,000, according to Islamic burial societies and humanitarian groups that are trying to trace those missing in the conflict.
Again, that's Baghdad alone.
The article explains the survey methods used at hospitals and other care facilities, and the method for arriving at that figure of 1,700 seems careful. Meanwhile, an estimate of 1,000 additional undocumented deaths comes from the Red Crescent:
Haidar Tari, director of tracing missing persons for the Iraqi Red Crescent, estimated there could have been up to 3,000 ... undocumented burials, perhaps one-third of them involving civilians. The Red Crescent has half a dozen teams working in districts where large numbers of dead were buried, but has not yet gained access to some areas under U.S. military control, including a large swath of land near the airport.
Hardest to trace will be people who died while traveling, Tari said. Their relatives might not have known when they left home, or where they were headed, and thus have no idea where to look.
"On one stretch of highway alone, there were more than 50 civilian cars, each with four or five people incinerated inside, that sat in the sun for 10 or 15 days before they were buried nearby by volunteers," Tari said. "That is what there will be for their relatives to come and find. War is bad, but its remnants are worse."
(As usual, use "clipjoint" as both member name and password if you're not already registered.)
(Thanks to Rational Enquirer for the link.)
At least 1,700 Iraqi civilians died and more than 8,000 were injured in the battle for the Iraqi capital, according to a Los Angeles Times survey of records from 27 hospitals in the capital and its outlying districts.
In addition, undocumented civilian deaths in Baghdad number at least in the hundreds and could reach 1,000, according to Islamic burial societies and humanitarian groups that are trying to trace those missing in the conflict.
Again, that's Baghdad alone.
The article explains the survey methods used at hospitals and other care facilities, and the method for arriving at that figure of 1,700 seems careful. Meanwhile, an estimate of 1,000 additional undocumented deaths comes from the Red Crescent:
Haidar Tari, director of tracing missing persons for the Iraqi Red Crescent, estimated there could have been up to 3,000 ... undocumented burials, perhaps one-third of them involving civilians. The Red Crescent has half a dozen teams working in districts where large numbers of dead were buried, but has not yet gained access to some areas under U.S. military control, including a large swath of land near the airport.
Hardest to trace will be people who died while traveling, Tari said. Their relatives might not have known when they left home, or where they were headed, and thus have no idea where to look.
"On one stretch of highway alone, there were more than 50 civilian cars, each with four or five people incinerated inside, that sat in the sun for 10 or 15 days before they were buried nearby by volunteers," Tari said. "That is what there will be for their relatives to come and find. War is bad, but its remnants are worse."
(As usual, use "clipjoint" as both member name and password if you're not already registered.)
(Thanks to Rational Enquirer for the link.)
EARTH TO SAFIRE ... EARTH TO SAFIRE ....
Four Palestinian suicide bombings. Suicide bombings in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Near-total societal breakdown in Iraq. Scary times, no? Not in whatever Cloud-Cuckooland William Safire is writing from. Here's the lead of the column he published today:
Worried about having nothing new to worry about? Upset that Baghdad turned out to be a cakewalk and SARS didn't lay everybody low?
Idiot.
Four Palestinian suicide bombings. Suicide bombings in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Near-total societal breakdown in Iraq. Scary times, no? Not in whatever Cloud-Cuckooland William Safire is writing from. Here's the lead of the column he published today:
Worried about having nothing new to worry about? Upset that Baghdad turned out to be a cakewalk and SARS didn't lay everybody low?
Idiot.
Your pro-war friends who smugly remind you that not as many museum artifacts were lost or destroyed in Iraq as originally feared need to read this:
...Basra University remained one of the few things that seemed to function well here, according to students and teachers. It has long been a source of pride for Basra, a city of 1.5 million people.
Now, a library that professors say contained two million volumes dating back to 1015 is a mess of twisted metal shelves atop ashes from the books set ablaze by looters.
The blue dome that professors say housed the oldest astronomy department in the Middle East is still there, but inside there is nothing but rubble. The law school, the economics department, the art school, the Arabic studies wing — all are ruined. The damage goes beyond what would be caused in mere burglary, crossing over into wanton destruction....
Volumes dating back to 1015 -- gone. But hey, the oil is secure, right?
...Basra University remained one of the few things that seemed to function well here, according to students and teachers. It has long been a source of pride for Basra, a city of 1.5 million people.
Now, a library that professors say contained two million volumes dating back to 1015 is a mess of twisted metal shelves atop ashes from the books set ablaze by looters.
The blue dome that professors say housed the oldest astronomy department in the Middle East is still there, but inside there is nothing but rubble. The law school, the economics department, the art school, the Arabic studies wing — all are ruined. The damage goes beyond what would be caused in mere burglary, crossing over into wanton destruction....
Volumes dating back to 1015 -- gone. But hey, the oil is secure, right?
Sunday, May 18, 2003
Last month, I expressed skepticism about certain documents an ABC News correspondent found virtually undamaged in a Baghdad building, despite the fact that the building had been bombed and looted, and despite the fact that other documents in the building had been burned or shredded. Now Swopa at Needlenose sifts through some stories, including that one, and notes that you can often find the fingerprints of the Iraqi National Congress (and some of its U.S. pals) when a story from Iraq seems (from the Bush administration's point of view) too good to be true. Interesting.
And let's not forget, of course, that Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that dramatic stories fed into the pipeline by the INC often don't pan out:
With the Pentagon’s support, Chalabi’s group worked to put defectors with compelling stories in touch with reporters in the United States and Europe. The resulting articles had dramatic accounts of advances in weapons of mass destruction or told of ties to terrorist groups. In some cases, these stories were disputed in analyses by the C.I.A. Misstatements and inconsistencies in I.N.C. defector accounts were also discovered after the final series of U.N. weapons inspections, which ended a few days before the American assault. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in political science at Cambridge University, compiled and examined the information that had been made public and concluded that the U.N. inspections had failed to find evidence to support the defectors’ claims....
And let's not forget, of course, that Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that dramatic stories fed into the pipeline by the INC often don't pan out:
With the Pentagon’s support, Chalabi’s group worked to put defectors with compelling stories in touch with reporters in the United States and Europe. The resulting articles had dramatic accounts of advances in weapons of mass destruction or told of ties to terrorist groups. In some cases, these stories were disputed in analyses by the C.I.A. Misstatements and inconsistencies in I.N.C. defector accounts were also discovered after the final series of U.N. weapons inspections, which ended a few days before the American assault. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in political science at Cambridge University, compiled and examined the information that had been made public and concluded that the U.N. inspections had failed to find evidence to support the defectors’ claims....
If you've read a lot of his work, it's fairly obvious that Christopher Hitchens is repulsed by women -- but is his peculiar misogyny so all-consuming that it would find its way into a review of a book on the writing of the King James Bible?
Yup.
Writing about Adam Nicolson's God's Secretaries in The New York Times Book Review, Hitchens says of the year 1604,
The once refulgent reign of Queen Elizabeth had come to a stale and frustrated end in the preceding year, and a new monarch had been imported from Scotland, emerging from the rather questionable uterus of the old queen's former rival, the amorously notorious Mary, Queen of Scots.
Excuse me? "Rather questionable uterus"? How can a uterus be questionable? And what on Earth does this have to do with the Bible?
I suspect that, for Hitchens, all uteruses are questionable. Not content with merely critiquing tales of Mother Teresa's saintliness, he wanted (scroll down) to call his book about her Sacred Cow; it was ultimately published as The Missionary Position. Years ago, he appeared on U.S. television -- Nightline, as I recall -- and repeatedly denounced Princess Diana as "that loathsome Spencer woman." (Sorry -- I don't have a link for this, but it's a vivid memory, and I'm uncertain only of whether the adjective was "loathsome," "repulsive," or "vile.") Katha Pollitt can't quite remember whether he used to refer to women as "douchebags." And while he was not the only person to loathe Bill Clinton from the left, he was probably the only leftist (rather than liberal or liberal-centrist) to embrace the far right wholeheartedly, and the proximate cause was not Clinton's advocacy of welfare reform or NAFTA but his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.
Hitchens has, as they say, issues -- though I never expected them to surface in this context.
Yup.
Writing about Adam Nicolson's God's Secretaries in The New York Times Book Review, Hitchens says of the year 1604,
The once refulgent reign of Queen Elizabeth had come to a stale and frustrated end in the preceding year, and a new monarch had been imported from Scotland, emerging from the rather questionable uterus of the old queen's former rival, the amorously notorious Mary, Queen of Scots.
Excuse me? "Rather questionable uterus"? How can a uterus be questionable? And what on Earth does this have to do with the Bible?
I suspect that, for Hitchens, all uteruses are questionable. Not content with merely critiquing tales of Mother Teresa's saintliness, he wanted (scroll down) to call his book about her Sacred Cow; it was ultimately published as The Missionary Position. Years ago, he appeared on U.S. television -- Nightline, as I recall -- and repeatedly denounced Princess Diana as "that loathsome Spencer woman." (Sorry -- I don't have a link for this, but it's a vivid memory, and I'm uncertain only of whether the adjective was "loathsome," "repulsive," or "vile.") Katha Pollitt can't quite remember whether he used to refer to women as "douchebags." And while he was not the only person to loathe Bill Clinton from the left, he was probably the only leftist (rather than liberal or liberal-centrist) to embrace the far right wholeheartedly, and the proximate cause was not Clinton's advocacy of welfare reform or NAFTA but his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.
Hitchens has, as they say, issues -- though I never expected them to surface in this context.
Saturday, May 17, 2003
OK, this is fairly trivial, but it annoys me:
VENEZUELA: U.S. AMBASSADOR CRITICIZED The government sharply criticized the American ambassador, Charles Shapiro, for holding an event at his official Caracas residence during which a female impersonator used a puppet to ridicule President Hugo Chávez. "What we have here is an irresponsible U.S. ambassador," Vice President José Vicente Rangel told a news conference, adding that the incident could be interpreted as "a provocation." The event, to commemorate International Press Freedom Day, was broadcast on television and was attended by several anti-Chávez media personalities. It ended with the appearance of the female impersonator carrying a large puppet representing the Venezuelan president. Mr. Shapiro planted a mock kiss on the impersonator's cheek.
This is one of our diplomats.
Imagine if the French ambassador to the U.S. had an event scheduled that was, for some reason, slated to be broadcast live on U.S. TV. -- say, PBS. Now imagine if the guest list pointedly included Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, with music from the Dixie Chicks. Think anyone here would be a bit peeved? Think it would be considered a tad undiplomatic?
VENEZUELA: U.S. AMBASSADOR CRITICIZED The government sharply criticized the American ambassador, Charles Shapiro, for holding an event at his official Caracas residence during which a female impersonator used a puppet to ridicule President Hugo Chávez. "What we have here is an irresponsible U.S. ambassador," Vice President José Vicente Rangel told a news conference, adding that the incident could be interpreted as "a provocation." The event, to commemorate International Press Freedom Day, was broadcast on television and was attended by several anti-Chávez media personalities. It ended with the appearance of the female impersonator carrying a large puppet representing the Venezuelan president. Mr. Shapiro planted a mock kiss on the impersonator's cheek.
This is one of our diplomats.
Imagine if the French ambassador to the U.S. had an event scheduled that was, for some reason, slated to be broadcast live on U.S. TV. -- say, PBS. Now imagine if the guest list pointedly included Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, with music from the Dixie Chicks. Think anyone here would be a bit peeved? Think it would be considered a tad undiplomatic?
Dumb terrorists in Morocco. Don't they know that if you want to get the attention of Americans you don't launch a vicious, brutal suicide bombing on a Friday night? Friday night is when you do things you don't want Americans to notice. The Bush administration knows that, which is why this story is breaking now:
In Reversal, Plan for Iraq Self-Rule Has Been Put Off
In an abrupt reversal, the United States and Britain have indefinitely put off their plan to allow Iraqi opposition forces to form a national assembly and an interim government by the end of the month.
Instead, top American and British diplomats leading reconstruction efforts here told exile leaders in a meeting tonight that allied officials would remain in charge of Iraq for an indefinite period, said Iraqis who attended the meeting. It was conducted by L. Paul Bremer, the new civilian administrator here.
"It's quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some interim body, because it will not have the strength or the resources to carry those responsibilities out," The Associated Press quoted Mr. Sawers as saying. "There was agreement that we should aim to have a national conference as soon as we reasonably could do so."
...Opposition leaders were "very respectful" to Mr. Bremer and Mr. Sawers, a participant said, "but I think everyone was also pretty forceful about the need to have full sovereignty for the Iraqis." A question they kept posing, he added, was, "Do you want to run this place, or should we?"
No date was set for creating an interim authority, and no details about its powers and functions were discussed in the meeting, the Iraqis said....
In Reversal, Plan for Iraq Self-Rule Has Been Put Off
In an abrupt reversal, the United States and Britain have indefinitely put off their plan to allow Iraqi opposition forces to form a national assembly and an interim government by the end of the month.
Instead, top American and British diplomats leading reconstruction efforts here told exile leaders in a meeting tonight that allied officials would remain in charge of Iraq for an indefinite period, said Iraqis who attended the meeting. It was conducted by L. Paul Bremer, the new civilian administrator here.
"It's quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some interim body, because it will not have the strength or the resources to carry those responsibilities out," The Associated Press quoted Mr. Sawers as saying. "There was agreement that we should aim to have a national conference as soon as we reasonably could do so."
...Opposition leaders were "very respectful" to Mr. Bremer and Mr. Sawers, a participant said, "but I think everyone was also pretty forceful about the need to have full sovereignty for the Iraqis." A question they kept posing, he added, was, "Do you want to run this place, or should we?"
No date was set for creating an interim authority, and no details about its powers and functions were discussed in the meeting, the Iraqis said....
You probably read that article from yesterday's New York Times about the management of image in the Bush White House (this is the link, though as I type this the whole Times site seems to be down). I want to put up a couple of numbers, for comparison. First, there's this from a USA Today story about Bush's Top Gun stunt on the Abraham Lincoln:
Staff members for Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, calculated that the visit delayed the ship's arrival in San Diego by at least a day and cost as much as $1 million in extra fuel costs, plus $100,000 in additional sea duty pay for the crew.
Now, from yesterday's Times article (I'm typing from the print edition):
The president's image makers, Mr. Bartlett [White House communications director Dan Bartlett] said, work within a budget for White House events allotted by Congress, which for fiscal 2003 was $3.7 million.
So if Obey is right, this stunt ate up 30 percent of the year's budget for events like this in one day.
Lovely.
Staff members for Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, calculated that the visit delayed the ship's arrival in San Diego by at least a day and cost as much as $1 million in extra fuel costs, plus $100,000 in additional sea duty pay for the crew.
Now, from yesterday's Times article (I'm typing from the print edition):
The president's image makers, Mr. Bartlett [White House communications director Dan Bartlett] said, work within a budget for White House events allotted by Congress, which for fiscal 2003 was $3.7 million.
So if Obey is right, this stunt ate up 30 percent of the year's budget for events like this in one day.
Lovely.
Friday, May 16, 2003
This (from The Independent) is just appalling:
Statistics unpublished until today reveal the stark facts: 242 people have died in Baghdad in just over three weeks, almost all from bullet wounds. It is an epidemic, and it is getting worse....
Dr Fa'ak Amin Bakr, director of the city mortuary, says 242 people have died in the past 25 days, of whom more than nine out of 10 had been shot. He says that before the invasion Baghdad had an average of one death a day caused by gunshot wounds.
Battles between looters and score-settling from the Saddam years have taken hold, fuelled by a security vacuum that owes much to a decision by Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary, to invade and occupy Iraq with minimum troop numbers – two divisions short, say well- informed sources within the Allies' reconstruction team.
They are the by-product, too, of the failure of the Allies to coax the Baghdad police to return to work in sufficient numbers. Most of the Iraqi officers who have returned have yet to come out of their police stations.
And homicide figures are going up. The 124 who died from bullet wounds in the past 10 days is a rise of 60 per cent on the previous 10-day period....
I keep going back to what that smug bastard InstaPundit said near the end of the war in his MSNBC blog:
The latest Iraqi claim I could find was for 500 civilian casualties and it’s almost surely inflated. Various antiwar groups are claiming to keep count, but their numbers, as several different commentators have observed, appear to be bogus. So I think it’s very possible that Iraqi civilian casualties, too, will turn out to be under 500.
The casualties from gunshot wounds in the postwar period are nearly half that -- in Baghdad alone. And it's all because Donald Rumsfeld was determined to show off and fight this war with low troop numbers, just to show what a big stud he is. Call this apples and oranges if you want to -- I say these are casualties of war.
Statistics unpublished until today reveal the stark facts: 242 people have died in Baghdad in just over three weeks, almost all from bullet wounds. It is an epidemic, and it is getting worse....
Dr Fa'ak Amin Bakr, director of the city mortuary, says 242 people have died in the past 25 days, of whom more than nine out of 10 had been shot. He says that before the invasion Baghdad had an average of one death a day caused by gunshot wounds.
Battles between looters and score-settling from the Saddam years have taken hold, fuelled by a security vacuum that owes much to a decision by Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary, to invade and occupy Iraq with minimum troop numbers – two divisions short, say well- informed sources within the Allies' reconstruction team.
They are the by-product, too, of the failure of the Allies to coax the Baghdad police to return to work in sufficient numbers. Most of the Iraqi officers who have returned have yet to come out of their police stations.
And homicide figures are going up. The 124 who died from bullet wounds in the past 10 days is a rise of 60 per cent on the previous 10-day period....
I keep going back to what that smug bastard InstaPundit said near the end of the war in his MSNBC blog:
The latest Iraqi claim I could find was for 500 civilian casualties and it’s almost surely inflated. Various antiwar groups are claiming to keep count, but their numbers, as several different commentators have observed, appear to be bogus. So I think it’s very possible that Iraqi civilian casualties, too, will turn out to be under 500.
The casualties from gunshot wounds in the postwar period are nearly half that -- in Baghdad alone. And it's all because Donald Rumsfeld was determined to show off and fight this war with low troop numbers, just to show what a big stud he is. Call this apples and oranges if you want to -- I say these are casualties of war.
A lot of people (Josh Marshall, Paul Krugman, the Rational Enquirer, Cursor) are citing this New Republic article, for good reason -- it's pretty damn scary:
Thus far violence in Baghdad has been limited to unorganized gangs of looters carrying Kalashnikovs. But Iraqi security experts and other sources in the capital say that, under the nose of the American forces, Iraq's nascent political groups are forming armed militias and storing weapons as they prepare for a potential civil war for control of the country. In fact, The New Republic has learned, several Iraqis say even Hezbollah has formed a branch in Baghdad. Ultimately, if Baghdad's power vacuum is not filled soon, the rise of organized armed factions could turn Iraq's capital into a twenty-first-century version of 1980s Beirut....
Though the armed wings of political parties already possess small arms, security sources say they are storing heavier weapons around Baghdad and other cities. In fact, says Sadoun Dulaimi, a one-time high-ranking Baghdad police official who recently returned to Iraq after fleeing the country in 1991 when Saddam sentenced him to death, what makes the militias so dangerous is their access to heavy weaponry, such as rocket-propelled grenades. ... Even tanks left around Baghdad by the retreating Iraqi army may have fallen into militias' hands....
I want to juxtapose an excerpt from this article with an excerpt from today's Paul Krugman column. First, The New Republic:
In part, U.S. reluctance to take on the militias may be a product of the relative security of the part of Baghdad where most Americans are billeted. Though most of the capital remains highly unsafe, and militias are becoming increasingly prevalent, American officials and journalists do not often see the armed groups because they generally stay within the small area surrounding the U.S. compounds and the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels, an area protected by Abrams tanks and machine-gun-wielding soldiers.
Now Krugman:
The administration's antiterror campaign makes me think of the way television studios really look. The fancy set usually sits in the middle of a shabby room, full of cardboard and duct tape. Networks take great care with what viewers see on their TV screens; they spend as little as possible on anything off camera.
I don't think the administration gives a damn what happens to the Iraqi people -- as long as they remain "off camera."
Thus far violence in Baghdad has been limited to unorganized gangs of looters carrying Kalashnikovs. But Iraqi security experts and other sources in the capital say that, under the nose of the American forces, Iraq's nascent political groups are forming armed militias and storing weapons as they prepare for a potential civil war for control of the country. In fact, The New Republic has learned, several Iraqis say even Hezbollah has formed a branch in Baghdad. Ultimately, if Baghdad's power vacuum is not filled soon, the rise of organized armed factions could turn Iraq's capital into a twenty-first-century version of 1980s Beirut....
Though the armed wings of political parties already possess small arms, security sources say they are storing heavier weapons around Baghdad and other cities. In fact, says Sadoun Dulaimi, a one-time high-ranking Baghdad police official who recently returned to Iraq after fleeing the country in 1991 when Saddam sentenced him to death, what makes the militias so dangerous is their access to heavy weaponry, such as rocket-propelled grenades. ... Even tanks left around Baghdad by the retreating Iraqi army may have fallen into militias' hands....
I want to juxtapose an excerpt from this article with an excerpt from today's Paul Krugman column. First, The New Republic:
In part, U.S. reluctance to take on the militias may be a product of the relative security of the part of Baghdad where most Americans are billeted. Though most of the capital remains highly unsafe, and militias are becoming increasingly prevalent, American officials and journalists do not often see the armed groups because they generally stay within the small area surrounding the U.S. compounds and the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels, an area protected by Abrams tanks and machine-gun-wielding soldiers.
Now Krugman:
The administration's antiterror campaign makes me think of the way television studios really look. The fancy set usually sits in the middle of a shabby room, full of cardboard and duct tape. Networks take great care with what viewers see on their TV screens; they spend as little as possible on anything off camera.
I don't think the administration gives a damn what happens to the Iraqi people -- as long as they remain "off camera."
You know things are bad in Iraq when even the New York Post acknowledges it:
...soldiers see the reservoir of Iraqi goodwill draining away while bureaucrats take their time holding meetings and making plans as if time were somehow not an issue. They fear that their successors here will face an intifada in the summer if power, water, medicine, gasoline and food don't start reaching Iraqi civilians.
"We ain't helping these people" says Sgt. Johnny Perdue of the 4/64 Scouts. It's just so f----ing frustrating. ORHA [the Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid] say they're doing it. Well, they're not doing it in the places we go."
"I'm no bleeding heart" says Sgt. Leon "Pete" Peters (who had more than his share of kills during the fighting south of the city). "I'll pull the trigger quick as anyone. But this place is going to go crazy if we don't find a way to help these people . . . I've been here for more than 30 days and I've yet to see a single yellow humanitarian food package."
He asks why American companies aren't being brought over to fix the electricity here. "You could get a message out to real Americans like the company I used to work for, and they'd come over here and get the power back on in a week." ...
The failure of ORHA and the Civil Affairs teams to have an impact in the street is particularly galling to men like Sgts. Peters and Perdue, who are working 19 hours a day, much of them spent walking through alleys ankle deep in uncollected trash. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, work civilian hours....
The Civil Affairs brigades are also notorious for failing to keep appointments with the locals. They'll put out a call for some kind of local professionals, telling candidates to turn up at the gate to the palace area at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. But when Tuesday comes, they'll forget to send anyone to get the 300 candidates through security, or cancel the recruiting session without telling anyone (as happened with interpreters in the third week of April).
Sometimes important local officials or informants or even Shia mullahs will be left to stand waiting for hours in the sun....
There are articles like this in the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, the British press, and elsewhere on a regular basis -- Rational Enquirer regularly provides links to these. But I'm surprised to see an article like this in Murdoch's Post.
...soldiers see the reservoir of Iraqi goodwill draining away while bureaucrats take their time holding meetings and making plans as if time were somehow not an issue. They fear that their successors here will face an intifada in the summer if power, water, medicine, gasoline and food don't start reaching Iraqi civilians.
"We ain't helping these people" says Sgt. Johnny Perdue of the 4/64 Scouts. It's just so f----ing frustrating. ORHA [the Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid] say they're doing it. Well, they're not doing it in the places we go."
"I'm no bleeding heart" says Sgt. Leon "Pete" Peters (who had more than his share of kills during the fighting south of the city). "I'll pull the trigger quick as anyone. But this place is going to go crazy if we don't find a way to help these people . . . I've been here for more than 30 days and I've yet to see a single yellow humanitarian food package."
He asks why American companies aren't being brought over to fix the electricity here. "You could get a message out to real Americans like the company I used to work for, and they'd come over here and get the power back on in a week." ...
The failure of ORHA and the Civil Affairs teams to have an impact in the street is particularly galling to men like Sgts. Peters and Perdue, who are working 19 hours a day, much of them spent walking through alleys ankle deep in uncollected trash. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, work civilian hours....
The Civil Affairs brigades are also notorious for failing to keep appointments with the locals. They'll put out a call for some kind of local professionals, telling candidates to turn up at the gate to the palace area at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. But when Tuesday comes, they'll forget to send anyone to get the 300 candidates through security, or cancel the recruiting session without telling anyone (as happened with interpreters in the third week of April).
Sometimes important local officials or informants or even Shia mullahs will be left to stand waiting for hours in the sun....
There are articles like this in the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, the British press, and elsewhere on a regular basis -- Rational Enquirer regularly provides links to these. But I'm surprised to see an article like this in Murdoch's Post.
When I heard that Bush won again in the Senate on tax cuts, I started to wonder: What would happen if lefties began to fight for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution?
Remember the balanced budget amendment? As late as 1997, Republicans loved the idea; now, of course, they'd run from it like scared rabbits. Budget balancing is an issue that resonates in the heartland, or at least it used to. It could unite lefties with the people who reject what they see as baby-boomer irresponsibility, the people who liked Ross Perot and Paul Tsongas. It could drive the GOP nuts.
Oh, I know: It's not a good idea; it's pretty much what's straitjacketing state governments now as tax revenues plummet. And if the movement were led, or partially led, by lefties, and it started to catch on, the right would discredit it by discrediting us ("During the war in Iraq, while our troops were in harm's way, this is someone who had the audacity to say..."). But I bet it's something Karl Rove hasn't war-gamed against. Maybe it could throw him off stride. (Something has to, someday, or we're screwed.)
A stupid idea, probably, but I'm just thinking out loud here.
Remember the balanced budget amendment? As late as 1997, Republicans loved the idea; now, of course, they'd run from it like scared rabbits. Budget balancing is an issue that resonates in the heartland, or at least it used to. It could unite lefties with the people who reject what they see as baby-boomer irresponsibility, the people who liked Ross Perot and Paul Tsongas. It could drive the GOP nuts.
Oh, I know: It's not a good idea; it's pretty much what's straitjacketing state governments now as tax revenues plummet. And if the movement were led, or partially led, by lefties, and it started to catch on, the right would discredit it by discrediting us ("During the war in Iraq, while our troops were in harm's way, this is someone who had the audacity to say..."). But I bet it's something Karl Rove hasn't war-gamed against. Maybe it could throw him off stride. (Something has to, someday, or we're screwed.)
A stupid idea, probably, but I'm just thinking out loud here.
In the hours before U.S. bombs began falling on the Iraqi capital, one of Saddam Hussein's sons and a close adviser carried off nearly $1 billion in cash from the country's Central Bank, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials....
Some Americans said they suspect the money may have been spirited across the border into Syria, in much the same way some senior officials in Saddam's government were believed to have fled Iraq.
Col. Ted Seel, a U.S. Army Special Forces officer who said he knew about the seizure of money, said intelligence information at the time indicated that a group of tractor-trailers crossed the Iraqi border into Syria.
--Dexter Filkins in The New York Times, May 6, 2003
The night after President Bush gave him 48 hours to surrender, Saddam Hussein sent his son Qusay to the vault of Iraq's Central Bank to make a modest withdrawal for the family's departure.
It took three tractor-trailers to haul away nearly a billion dollars in cash — all in $100 U.S. greenbacks — plus $100 million worth of euros. Thus did Saddam & Sons bring off the grandest larceny in bank history....
The stolen billion was probably driven out of Iraq on March 18, the night before the war began. Across which of its borders? Iran, Saddam's enemy, is least likely; Turkey, which does not want further tensions with the U.S., unlikely; Jordan, possible; Syria, occupying Lebanon, with its corrupt Beirut banks, the most probable.
--William Safire in The New York Times, May 8, 2003
American Treasury officials announced today that they had recovered $950 million in Iraqi assets that they believe constitutes the bulk of the $1 billion looted by Saddam Hussein's family hours before war began in mid-March.
The money was found inside Iraq within the last week, they said, dispelling a theory proffered earlier by military officials in Baghdad that it might have been whisked into Syria aboard three tractor-trailers.
--Timothy L. O'Brien in The New York Times, May 15, 2003
Apparently -- shocking as this may seem to conservatives -- you don't have to be an affirmative-action hire to publish articles in The New York Times that are utterly at odds with objective reality. And you don't have to black, either -- Safire's white, obviously, as is Dexter Filkins.
Some Americans said they suspect the money may have been spirited across the border into Syria, in much the same way some senior officials in Saddam's government were believed to have fled Iraq.
Col. Ted Seel, a U.S. Army Special Forces officer who said he knew about the seizure of money, said intelligence information at the time indicated that a group of tractor-trailers crossed the Iraqi border into Syria.
--Dexter Filkins in The New York Times, May 6, 2003
The night after President Bush gave him 48 hours to surrender, Saddam Hussein sent his son Qusay to the vault of Iraq's Central Bank to make a modest withdrawal for the family's departure.
It took three tractor-trailers to haul away nearly a billion dollars in cash — all in $100 U.S. greenbacks — plus $100 million worth of euros. Thus did Saddam & Sons bring off the grandest larceny in bank history....
The stolen billion was probably driven out of Iraq on March 18, the night before the war began. Across which of its borders? Iran, Saddam's enemy, is least likely; Turkey, which does not want further tensions with the U.S., unlikely; Jordan, possible; Syria, occupying Lebanon, with its corrupt Beirut banks, the most probable.
--William Safire in The New York Times, May 8, 2003
American Treasury officials announced today that they had recovered $950 million in Iraqi assets that they believe constitutes the bulk of the $1 billion looted by Saddam Hussein's family hours before war began in mid-March.
The money was found inside Iraq within the last week, they said, dispelling a theory proffered earlier by military officials in Baghdad that it might have been whisked into Syria aboard three tractor-trailers.
--Timothy L. O'Brien in The New York Times, May 15, 2003
Apparently -- shocking as this may seem to conservatives -- you don't have to be an affirmative-action hire to publish articles in The New York Times that are utterly at odds with objective reality. And you don't have to black, either -- Safire's white, obviously, as is Dexter Filkins.
Thursday, May 15, 2003
The Republican Party regards itself as "the party of ideas" -- and now those ideas are being articulated by a new voice. Joining such savants as Gary Aldrich, Paul Weyrich, and Tammy Bruce is a new pundit writing for the right-wing Web site NewsMax: Melrose Larry Green.
Some of you know exactly who that is. The rest of you are fortunate. This site explains:
While standing on the corner of Melrose and Vine in Los Angeles almost every morning with a sandwich board preaching the virtues of Howard Stern, Melrose Larry Green came to life. Melrose has traveled around the country with his signs being beaten, arrested and verbally abused while exclaiming "Baba Booey" to the world. Hated by most fans and Gary [Dell'Abate, producer of Howard Stern's show], Melrose endures due to Howard's fascination with him.
Here's his vitae, from AmIAnnoying.com.
You probably think a guy like this can't possibly be taken seriously as a political commentator. But consider:
* Michael Savage, a self-proclamed "World Famous Herbal Expert," has a high-rated radio show, a TV show on MSNBC, and a #1 New York Times bestseller;
* P.J. O'Rourke, who used to write articles for National Lampoon with titles such as "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink," is a best-selling author and is now considered a political philosopher;
* Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a Ph.D. in physiology, is a successful radio host and author and is now considered a moral philosopher;
* Dennis Miller, who once sang a song on Saturday Night Live the chorus of which consisted of the word "penis" repeated over and over, has now written his first Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.
So it's entirely possible that in a few years we'll see Bill O'Reilly nodding sagely and agreeing with Melrose Larry's opinions about Ted Kennedy, while he tells Katrina vanden Heuvel that she's an idiot.
One of Melrose Larry's NewsMax articles is "Moran's Remarks 'Insensitive, Irresponsible and Inaccurate,'" a response to anti-Semitic comments by the conservative Democratic congressman. Larry writes:
As an American and a Jew, I was shocked to read the recent anti-Semitic comments of Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va. ... These remarks are insensitive, irresponsible and inaccurate.
Here's an excerpt from Private Parts, the first book by Howard Stern, a man Larry deeply admires:
Take the Mexicans. They're nice people. I got nothing against Mexicans, but if they're Mexicans, they should be in Mexico. And the ones that come here are so angry. Of course, I'd be confused and angry, too, if I had dark skin and white people's hair. Speaking of hair, how do you like those Hispanic chicks who dye their hair blond? That's an attractive look. No wonder some Spanish guys are ready to rape any white woman who comes along.
Now that I think of it, I wonder why Stern isn't writing for NewsMax.
Some of you know exactly who that is. The rest of you are fortunate. This site explains:
While standing on the corner of Melrose and Vine in Los Angeles almost every morning with a sandwich board preaching the virtues of Howard Stern, Melrose Larry Green came to life. Melrose has traveled around the country with his signs being beaten, arrested and verbally abused while exclaiming "Baba Booey" to the world. Hated by most fans and Gary [Dell'Abate, producer of Howard Stern's show], Melrose endures due to Howard's fascination with him.
Here's his vitae, from AmIAnnoying.com.
You probably think a guy like this can't possibly be taken seriously as a political commentator. But consider:
* Michael Savage, a self-proclamed "World Famous Herbal Expert," has a high-rated radio show, a TV show on MSNBC, and a #1 New York Times bestseller;
* P.J. O'Rourke, who used to write articles for National Lampoon with titles such as "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink," is a best-selling author and is now considered a political philosopher;
* Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a Ph.D. in physiology, is a successful radio host and author and is now considered a moral philosopher;
* Dennis Miller, who once sang a song on Saturday Night Live the chorus of which consisted of the word "penis" repeated over and over, has now written his first Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.
So it's entirely possible that in a few years we'll see Bill O'Reilly nodding sagely and agreeing with Melrose Larry's opinions about Ted Kennedy, while he tells Katrina vanden Heuvel that she's an idiot.
One of Melrose Larry's NewsMax articles is "Moran's Remarks 'Insensitive, Irresponsible and Inaccurate,'" a response to anti-Semitic comments by the conservative Democratic congressman. Larry writes:
As an American and a Jew, I was shocked to read the recent anti-Semitic comments of Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va. ... These remarks are insensitive, irresponsible and inaccurate.
Here's an excerpt from Private Parts, the first book by Howard Stern, a man Larry deeply admires:
Take the Mexicans. They're nice people. I got nothing against Mexicans, but if they're Mexicans, they should be in Mexico. And the ones that come here are so angry. Of course, I'd be confused and angry, too, if I had dark skin and white people's hair. Speaking of hair, how do you like those Hispanic chicks who dye their hair blond? That's an attractive look. No wonder some Spanish guys are ready to rape any white woman who comes along.
Now that I think of it, I wonder why Stern isn't writing for NewsMax.
This is from The Times of London:
BARONESS Thatcher returned to politics last night with an attack on the French, whom she accused of collaborating with “enemies of the West” for short-term gain....
She praised Tony Blair, but above all President Bush, for overriding the “rot” that “paralysed” the United Nations.
A few paragraphs down, there's this:
Lady Thatcher said that she had “drunk deep from the same well of ideas” as her great ally, the former US President Ronald Reagan.
And there's also this:
Lady Thatcher said: “For years, many governments played down the threats of Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain — but enough about the French....”
Yeah, coddling enemies of the West is such a French thing to do....
Washington, D.C., 25 February 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980's, including the renewal of diplomatic relations that had been suspended since 1967. The documents show that during this period of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would "probably" include "an eventual nuclear weapon capability," harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam (20 December 1983).
The declassified documents posted today include the briefing materials and diplomatic reporting on two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, reports on Iraqi chemical weapons use concurrent with the Reagan administration's decision to support Iraq, and decision directives signed by President Reagan that reveal the specific U.S. priorities for the region: preserving access to oil, expanding U.S. ability to project military power in the region, and protecting local allies from internal and external threats....
BARONESS Thatcher returned to politics last night with an attack on the French, whom she accused of collaborating with “enemies of the West” for short-term gain....
She praised Tony Blair, but above all President Bush, for overriding the “rot” that “paralysed” the United Nations.
A few paragraphs down, there's this:
Lady Thatcher said that she had “drunk deep from the same well of ideas” as her great ally, the former US President Ronald Reagan.
And there's also this:
Lady Thatcher said: “For years, many governments played down the threats of Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain — but enough about the French....”
Yeah, coddling enemies of the West is such a French thing to do....
Washington, D.C., 25 February 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980's, including the renewal of diplomatic relations that had been suspended since 1967. The documents show that during this period of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would "probably" include "an eventual nuclear weapon capability," harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam (20 December 1983).
The declassified documents posted today include the briefing materials and diplomatic reporting on two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, reports on Iraqi chemical weapons use concurrent with the Reagan administration's decision to support Iraq, and decision directives signed by President Reagan that reveal the specific U.S. priorities for the region: preserving access to oil, expanding U.S. ability to project military power in the region, and protecting local allies from internal and external threats....
Chris Whittle promises profits soon, but I see that his "for-profit" company Edison Schools is still in the red, according to The New York Times:
The company's net loss for its fiscal third quarter, which ended on March 30, was $6.4 million, exactly half the size of its loss in the same quarter last year, on revenue of $108.4 million.
For the nine months that ended in March, the company lost $35.2 million on revenue of $291 million, down from a loss of $37.1 million on revenue of $327.3 million in the same period a year earlier....
Edison's effort to rein in its growth in pursuit of profitability was evident in the continuing shrinkage of its revenue, as it continued to close out unprofitable management contracts and it was unable to renew a few other contracts around the country. Net revenue in the third quarter fell more than 10 percent from the same period a year earlier....
Every year, all over the country, tax increases and bond issues are rejected as ways of dealing with school budget shortfalls; taxpayers, having heard decades of right-wing propaganda about "government waste," insist schools should "live within their means."
So why can't Edison Schools live within its means? And if it can't, why do conservatives lavish it with praise?
The company's net loss for its fiscal third quarter, which ended on March 30, was $6.4 million, exactly half the size of its loss in the same quarter last year, on revenue of $108.4 million.
For the nine months that ended in March, the company lost $35.2 million on revenue of $291 million, down from a loss of $37.1 million on revenue of $327.3 million in the same period a year earlier....
Edison's effort to rein in its growth in pursuit of profitability was evident in the continuing shrinkage of its revenue, as it continued to close out unprofitable management contracts and it was unable to renew a few other contracts around the country. Net revenue in the third quarter fell more than 10 percent from the same period a year earlier....
Every year, all over the country, tax increases and bond issues are rejected as ways of dealing with school budget shortfalls; taxpayers, having heard decades of right-wing propaganda about "government waste," insist schools should "live within their means."
So why can't Edison Schools live within its means? And if it can't, why do conservatives lavish it with praise?
Fox News, of course, calls itself "fair and balanced." It also posts billboards proclaiming that it delivers "real journalism."
When you hear those phrases, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps something like this response from Fox's Neil Cavuto to comments in a recent Paul Krugman column?
...You're as phony as you are unprofessional. And you have the nerve to criticize me, or Fox News, and by extension, News Corporation?
...And by the way, you sanctimonious twit, no one -- no one -- tells me what to say. I say it. And I write it. And no one lectures me on it. Save you, you pretentious charlatan.
..Nowhere does it ever occur to you, one can legitimately not agree with you. That doesn't make me less of a journalist. But, Mr. Krugman, it does make you more of an ass....
Now may I suggest you take your column and shove it?
Lovely.
When you hear those phrases, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps something like this response from Fox's Neil Cavuto to comments in a recent Paul Krugman column?
...You're as phony as you are unprofessional. And you have the nerve to criticize me, or Fox News, and by extension, News Corporation?
...And by the way, you sanctimonious twit, no one -- no one -- tells me what to say. I say it. And I write it. And no one lectures me on it. Save you, you pretentious charlatan.
..Nowhere does it ever occur to you, one can legitimately not agree with you. That doesn't make me less of a journalist. But, Mr. Krugman, it does make you more of an ass....
Now may I suggest you take your column and shove it?
Lovely.
Yeah, the Drudge Report can be obnoxious -- but give the guy his due: every so often he gives you a story that doesn't reflect well on his side.
Like this one:
Some Audience Members Told Not to Wear Ties for Bush Speech
President Bush came to Indianapolis to send the message that his tax cut plan will help everyone and not just the wealthy. That's why all those people sitting behind him were instructed on what to wear....
George W. Bush came to Indianapolis for the picture. And in that picture, the White House wanted ordinary people.
“These are V.I.P.'s right, ordinary people aren't up on stage behind the president of the United States when he's speaking but the trick is to make V.I.P.'s look like they're ordinary people,” said Bill Bloomquist, political scientist.
That's why everyone sitting behind the president wearing a necktie was instructed to take it off.
Exhibit A is Brian Bosma. He appeared onstage in a necktie, prior to the president's arrival. When the president got there the Indiana House minority leader had an open collar. In a News 8 interview immediately following the speech, the tie was back on.
...There were some other neckties in the crowd but most of them belonged to Secret Service agents. Representative Bosma told News 8, “When the guy from the White House tells you to take your tie off, you don't ask why.” But he also removed his pocket square....
Now, our side needs a media food chain that can turn this into ... Tiegate!
Like this one:
Some Audience Members Told Not to Wear Ties for Bush Speech
President Bush came to Indianapolis to send the message that his tax cut plan will help everyone and not just the wealthy. That's why all those people sitting behind him were instructed on what to wear....
George W. Bush came to Indianapolis for the picture. And in that picture, the White House wanted ordinary people.
“These are V.I.P.'s right, ordinary people aren't up on stage behind the president of the United States when he's speaking but the trick is to make V.I.P.'s look like they're ordinary people,” said Bill Bloomquist, political scientist.
That's why everyone sitting behind the president wearing a necktie was instructed to take it off.
Exhibit A is Brian Bosma. He appeared onstage in a necktie, prior to the president's arrival. When the president got there the Indiana House minority leader had an open collar. In a News 8 interview immediately following the speech, the tie was back on.
...There were some other neckties in the crowd but most of them belonged to Secret Service agents. Representative Bosma told News 8, “When the guy from the White House tells you to take your tie off, you don't ask why.” But he also removed his pocket square....
Now, our side needs a media food chain that can turn this into ... Tiegate!
Howell Raines says Jews were responsible for the Holocaust! Outrageous! How can any decent person write for his paper?
...No, wait -- it wasn't the editor of The New York Times, it was the owner of The Washington Times, Sun Myung Moon, who said this in a speech on March 2 in Arlington, Virginia:
"Who are the Jewish members here, raise your hands! Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed six million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents."
Wake me when a conservative denounces Moon for this, or refuses to write for Moon's Bush-friendly paper.
(The quote is from the May issue of Church & State, the magazine of Americans United for Separation of Church & State. The story isn't online yet.)
*****
UPDATE: It's nearly two years late, but here's the link.
...No, wait -- it wasn't the editor of The New York Times, it was the owner of The Washington Times, Sun Myung Moon, who said this in a speech on March 2 in Arlington, Virginia:
"Who are the Jewish members here, raise your hands! Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed six million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents."
Wake me when a conservative denounces Moon for this, or refuses to write for Moon's Bush-friendly paper.
(The quote is from the May issue of Church & State, the magazine of Americans United for Separation of Church & State. The story isn't online yet.)
*****
UPDATE: It's nearly two years late, but here's the link.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Mere months after an endless round of right-wing whining about signs at peace demonstrations that compared Bush to Hitler, a conservative "thinker" seems to be crossing the Nazi name-calling line. Publishers Lunch reports that the following book will be published in 2005 by Doubleday:
National Review editor Jonah Goldberg's LIBERAL FASCISM, arguing that "like the national socialists of old, today's liberal fascists care about ends more than means, politicize the personal, see citizens as representatives of their race and ethnicity and inject ideology into every aspect of our daily lives," and maintaining that "political correctness is merely the social etiquette of Liberal Fascism, the good manners of the New Age"....
Lovely -- so now we're all Nazis. The editor of this book by the Spawn of Lucianne will be Adam Bellow, who used to edit right-wing swill at Free Press when Christopher Ruddy and the then-conservative David Brock were publishing there. But to give Bellow his due, he's also signed this book up:
Jacob Heilbrunn's AMERICAN CAESARS: The Rise of the Neoconservatives, looking at the much-discussed group that includes Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Michael Rubin, Elliott Abrams, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, plus William Kristol, James Woolsey, David Frum, and Richard Perle, asserting that they aim for "nothing less than the destruction of the United Nations and its replacement with the U.S. as the arbiter of international relation," and showing "where these anti-totalitarian crusaders came from—and where they're taking the U.S."...
Alas, that one will also be out in 2005, too late to influence the election. Since it's these guys we're really voting for, that's a pity. Heilbrunn wrote, among other things, "His Anti-Semitic Sources," a 1995 New York Review of Books article about the writings that inspired some of Pat Robertson's best-known books. (The article, alas, is pay-per-view online.) Gee, do you think Jonah Goldberg has ever compared Pat Robertson to "the national socialists of old"?
In 2005, Crown Forum (Ann Coulter's imprint) will publish
Norman Podhoretz's HATING AMERICA, on anti-Americanism, both its current incarnation and its historical and philosophical sources
which, I guess, will be exactly like every other right-wing book, except polysyllabic. But there's also this about another Crown author:
Film rights have sold to the David Brock's bestselling BLINDED BY THE RIGHT, to writer/producer David Hayter (X Men, X2)...
Not really the guy you'd want making this movie, but still.
Oh, and Thomas Nelson Books (the Bible publishers who also publish Michael Savage) will publish the latest Laurie Beth Jones book: Jesus, Coach. Jones is also the author of Jesus, CEO and Jesus, Entrepreneur.
National Review editor Jonah Goldberg's LIBERAL FASCISM, arguing that "like the national socialists of old, today's liberal fascists care about ends more than means, politicize the personal, see citizens as representatives of their race and ethnicity and inject ideology into every aspect of our daily lives," and maintaining that "political correctness is merely the social etiquette of Liberal Fascism, the good manners of the New Age"....
Lovely -- so now we're all Nazis. The editor of this book by the Spawn of Lucianne will be Adam Bellow, who used to edit right-wing swill at Free Press when Christopher Ruddy and the then-conservative David Brock were publishing there. But to give Bellow his due, he's also signed this book up:
Jacob Heilbrunn's AMERICAN CAESARS: The Rise of the Neoconservatives, looking at the much-discussed group that includes Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Michael Rubin, Elliott Abrams, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, plus William Kristol, James Woolsey, David Frum, and Richard Perle, asserting that they aim for "nothing less than the destruction of the United Nations and its replacement with the U.S. as the arbiter of international relation," and showing "where these anti-totalitarian crusaders came from—and where they're taking the U.S."...
Alas, that one will also be out in 2005, too late to influence the election. Since it's these guys we're really voting for, that's a pity. Heilbrunn wrote, among other things, "His Anti-Semitic Sources," a 1995 New York Review of Books article about the writings that inspired some of Pat Robertson's best-known books. (The article, alas, is pay-per-view online.) Gee, do you think Jonah Goldberg has ever compared Pat Robertson to "the national socialists of old"?
In 2005, Crown Forum (Ann Coulter's imprint) will publish
Norman Podhoretz's HATING AMERICA, on anti-Americanism, both its current incarnation and its historical and philosophical sources
which, I guess, will be exactly like every other right-wing book, except polysyllabic. But there's also this about another Crown author:
Film rights have sold to the David Brock's bestselling BLINDED BY THE RIGHT, to writer/producer David Hayter (X Men, X2)...
Not really the guy you'd want making this movie, but still.
Oh, and Thomas Nelson Books (the Bible publishers who also publish Michael Savage) will publish the latest Laurie Beth Jones book: Jesus, Coach. Jones is also the author of Jesus, CEO and Jesus, Entrepreneur.
This story says that the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which has seized thirty-two European tourists in Algeria this year, is affiliated with al-Qaeda. Seventeen of the tourists were freed in a gun battle yesterday. The other fifteen are presumably still being held by the group -- which, apparently, has not been apprised of the fact that it cowers in fear at the sheer manliness and utter global dominance of President Flight Suit, the embodiment of freedom and Western values and the scourge of all the world's terrorists.
War with Iraq will bring more terrorism. This is a hardy perennial. It was claimed before the Gulf war and the Afghanistan campaign--and when bombs fell on al Qaeda and the Taliban during Ramadan. Rather than more terrorism, removing Saddam will bring more respect for the United States. Terrorists will be increasingly fearful.
--Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard, 3/6/03, shortly before the war started
--Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard, 3/6/03, shortly before the war started
Andrew Sullivan reviews Sidney Blumenthal's The Clinton Wars in this week's New York Observer. Blumenthal is a Democratic loyalist who doesn't much like Republicans, and his book reflects that. Apparently, this is utterly remarkable to Sullivan:
It’s not a memoir, or a history. It’s a Gospel. Its facts are assembled, as the facts in the Gospels were assembled, for one purpose only: to affirm the faith, to rally the flock, to spread the further glory of the Church. It’s an allegory of eternal good and evil....
...This is Sid’s utopia. A world run by Democrats, in which everyone is a Democrat, everything is a Democrat, and being a Democrat is being a member of the elect, the saved, the holy.
Over and over, Sullivan shakes his head -- agog at the realization that someone in politics actually expressed his own partisan political beliefs in a book about a presidency.
Apparently, in his travels, Sullivan has never once happened across this book.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
*********
Ah, but poor Andrew: He goes on for nearly three thousand words about how awful Blumenthal's book is, and deals out one or two crumbs of praise to show that he, heaven forfend, isn't a partisan zealot -- and those crumbs will almost certainly make their way into ads for Blumenthal's book, and on the pages of reviewer praise that will go into the paperback edition:
"The account Mr. Blumenthal gives of the haplessness and priggishness of Kenneth Starr is riveting stuff. ...The insane attempt to actually bring down a President over perjury in a civil suit has not yet been more vividly evoked. ... Brutally revealing about the stupidity, bigotry, malevolence and extremism of the right-wing forces that became obsessed with President Clinton."
--Andrew Sullivan, New York Observer
It’s not a memoir, or a history. It’s a Gospel. Its facts are assembled, as the facts in the Gospels were assembled, for one purpose only: to affirm the faith, to rally the flock, to spread the further glory of the Church. It’s an allegory of eternal good and evil....
...This is Sid’s utopia. A world run by Democrats, in which everyone is a Democrat, everything is a Democrat, and being a Democrat is being a member of the elect, the saved, the holy.
Over and over, Sullivan shakes his head -- agog at the realization that someone in politics actually expressed his own partisan political beliefs in a book about a presidency.
Apparently, in his travels, Sullivan has never once happened across this book.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
*********
Ah, but poor Andrew: He goes on for nearly three thousand words about how awful Blumenthal's book is, and deals out one or two crumbs of praise to show that he, heaven forfend, isn't a partisan zealot -- and those crumbs will almost certainly make their way into ads for Blumenthal's book, and on the pages of reviewer praise that will go into the paperback edition:
"The account Mr. Blumenthal gives of the haplessness and priggishness of Kenneth Starr is riveting stuff. ...The insane attempt to actually bring down a President over perjury in a civil suit has not yet been more vividly evoked. ... Brutally revealing about the stupidity, bigotry, malevolence and extremism of the right-wing forces that became obsessed with President Clinton."
--Andrew Sullivan, New York Observer
Interesting detail from Joshua Micah Marshall:
Several days ago a friend who is renowned for his expertise on al-Qaida and Islamist terrorism generally told me that there had been a wave of shootings of Westerners in Saudi Arabia recently. But the Saudis had dismissed them as simply criminal incidents arising out of disputes over the illicit trade in liquor. I don't know the precise numbers. I don't think we're talking about that many people. But it seemed to make him wonder whether these might actually be low-level terror attacks which the Saudis were simply covering up, by deceptively categorizing them.
As I mentioned yesterday, CNN has noted two such recent incidents. Have there been more? How bad is it out there? How many such incidents did the White House know about when it ordered a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner hung behind Bush as he told sailors on the Abraham Lincoln that we'd essentially done what we set out to do in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Several days ago a friend who is renowned for his expertise on al-Qaida and Islamist terrorism generally told me that there had been a wave of shootings of Westerners in Saudi Arabia recently. But the Saudis had dismissed them as simply criminal incidents arising out of disputes over the illicit trade in liquor. I don't know the precise numbers. I don't think we're talking about that many people. But it seemed to make him wonder whether these might actually be low-level terror attacks which the Saudis were simply covering up, by deceptively categorizing them.
As I mentioned yesterday, CNN has noted two such recent incidents. Have there been more? How bad is it out there? How many such incidents did the White House know about when it ordered a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner hung behind Bush as he told sailors on the Abraham Lincoln that we'd essentially done what we set out to do in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The front-page headline in the print New York Times is: Bush Condemns Saudi Blasts; 7 Americans Are Dead. For the past year-plus Bush was distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and related groups, but's that's not the headline; the story is Bush, Our Avenger. And we wonder why his popularity persists.
Maureen Dowd gets it:
Busy chasing off Saddam, the president and vice president had told us that Al Qaeda was spent. "Al Qaeda is on the run," President Bush said last week. "That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated. . . . They're not a problem anymore."
Members of the U.S. intelligence community bragged to reporters that the terrorist band was crippled, noting that it hadn't attacked during the assault on Iraq.
"This was the big game for them — you put up or shut up, and they have failed," Cofer Black, who heads the State Department's counterterrorism office, told The Washington Post last week.
Of course, the other way of looking at it is that Al Qaeda works at its own pace and knows how to conduct operations on the run....
Buried in the rubble of Riyadh are some of the Bush administration's basic assumptions: that Al Qaeda was finished, that invading Iraq would bring regional stability and that a show of American superpower against Saddam would cow terrorists.
Bob Graham, the Florida senator running for president, said at the Capitol yesterday that Iraq had been a diversion: "We essentially ended the war on terror about a year ago. And since that time, Al Qaeda has been allowed to regenerate."
Doing a buddy routine with Rummy yesterday in Washington, as the defense secretary accepted an award, Vice President Dick Cheney was as implacable as ever. "The only way to deal with this threat ultimately is to destroy it," he said.
So destroy it.
Maureen Dowd gets it:
Busy chasing off Saddam, the president and vice president had told us that Al Qaeda was spent. "Al Qaeda is on the run," President Bush said last week. "That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated. . . . They're not a problem anymore."
Members of the U.S. intelligence community bragged to reporters that the terrorist band was crippled, noting that it hadn't attacked during the assault on Iraq.
"This was the big game for them — you put up or shut up, and they have failed," Cofer Black, who heads the State Department's counterterrorism office, told The Washington Post last week.
Of course, the other way of looking at it is that Al Qaeda works at its own pace and knows how to conduct operations on the run....
Buried in the rubble of Riyadh are some of the Bush administration's basic assumptions: that Al Qaeda was finished, that invading Iraq would bring regional stability and that a show of American superpower against Saddam would cow terrorists.
Bob Graham, the Florida senator running for president, said at the Capitol yesterday that Iraq had been a diversion: "We essentially ended the war on terror about a year ago. And since that time, Al Qaeda has been allowed to regenerate."
Doing a buddy routine with Rummy yesterday in Washington, as the defense secretary accepted an award, Vice President Dick Cheney was as implacable as ever. "The only way to deal with this threat ultimately is to destroy it," he said.
So destroy it.
Drudge linked this story yesterday to try to demonstrate that Democratic complaints about Bush's Top Gun stunt were hypocritical:
‘Tailhook scandal’ finds congressmen in same boat
Lost in the political firestorm over President Bush’s Top Gun landing on an aircraft carrier to proclaim the end of the Iraq war is the fact that lawmakers and congressional staff have routinely made similar forays.
Navy records show that 25 congressional personnel, including 12 lawmakers, have flown to aircraft carriers in four separate instances since the beginning of the year....
The story enumerated ordinary trips to aircraft carriers by members of Congress and their staffs -- overlooking the fact that the complaints about the Top Gun stunt weren't about the fact that it happened but about the way it was done, with a showy and utterly unnecessary tailhook landing.
The story listed the names of several others in government who'd made the same kind of tailhook landing Bush made:
In late January, six congressional aides made a less publicized tailhook landing on the USS Nimitz as it also plied the waters off of Southern California, Navy records show.
Aides to Republican Sens. Sam Brownback (Kan.), Michael Crapo (Idaho), Thad Cochran (Miss.), and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), and to Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), made the tailhook landing on Jan. 24. The delegation stayed overnight and left the following day....
... a group of lawmakers led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a tailhook landing on the USS Harry S Truman, deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.
Traveling with Hastert to the carrier were Republican Reps. Judy Biggert (Ill.), Anne Northup (Ky.), Mike Pence (Ind.), John Portman (Ohio), John Shadegg (Ariz.) and Todd Tiahrt (Kan.). Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) also made the landing. At least 16 press organizations reported on the trip to the carrier.
Let's see -- one Republican president, seven Republican House members, six Republican senatorial aides, and one Democratic House member did this.
Anyone see, y'know, a pattern here?
‘Tailhook scandal’ finds congressmen in same boat
Lost in the political firestorm over President Bush’s Top Gun landing on an aircraft carrier to proclaim the end of the Iraq war is the fact that lawmakers and congressional staff have routinely made similar forays.
Navy records show that 25 congressional personnel, including 12 lawmakers, have flown to aircraft carriers in four separate instances since the beginning of the year....
The story enumerated ordinary trips to aircraft carriers by members of Congress and their staffs -- overlooking the fact that the complaints about the Top Gun stunt weren't about the fact that it happened but about the way it was done, with a showy and utterly unnecessary tailhook landing.
The story listed the names of several others in government who'd made the same kind of tailhook landing Bush made:
In late January, six congressional aides made a less publicized tailhook landing on the USS Nimitz as it also plied the waters off of Southern California, Navy records show.
Aides to Republican Sens. Sam Brownback (Kan.), Michael Crapo (Idaho), Thad Cochran (Miss.), and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), and to Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), made the tailhook landing on Jan. 24. The delegation stayed overnight and left the following day....
... a group of lawmakers led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a tailhook landing on the USS Harry S Truman, deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.
Traveling with Hastert to the carrier were Republican Reps. Judy Biggert (Ill.), Anne Northup (Ky.), Mike Pence (Ind.), John Portman (Ohio), John Shadegg (Ariz.) and Todd Tiahrt (Kan.). Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) also made the landing. At least 16 press organizations reported on the trip to the carrier.
Let's see -- one Republican president, seven Republican House members, six Republican senatorial aides, and one Democratic House member did this.
Anyone see, y'know, a pattern here?
Drudge Report shock headline:
EMERGENCY MEETING CALLED AT OLD GRAY LADY; NEWSROOM IN CRISIS
Text of internal memo quoted by Drudge that leads to this conclusion:
Howell, Gerald and Arthur request that you join your newsroom colleagues at an open forum at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, to discuss the Jayson Blair matter and anything else you might have on your mind. The meeting will be held at the Loew's Astor Theater, the moviehouse just behind The Times on 44th Street at Broadway, across from Carmine's. Doors open at 2:15 p.m.
Please be sure to bring your Times i.d. card. No one will be admitted to the theater without their Times i.d.
You will be able to ask questions from the floor, or write them on cards that will be distributed at the door. In addition, we have set up an email address -- forum@nytimes.com -- where you can send questions, either in advance of the session or afterward.
On Wednesday morning, we will send out a separate email advising correspondents and bureaus outside New York how they may dial into the forum and listen to the session. Unfortunately, because of the short time available to set up the forum, people listening from a remote location will not be able to ask live questions. You may, however, avail yourself of the email address above. If you get questions to us before 2 p.m. EDT tomorrow, we will put them into the hopper. Otherwise, they will be answered later.
My company had a couple of high-profile dismissals in the past year, and we were summoned to several meetings like this. There was anxiety, but we heard reassurances, adjustments were made, and life went on.
I actually find Drudge somewhat useful these days -- lately he's been more a source of links than a gossipmonger. But this is just idiotic.
******************
Equally idiotic, I think, is the fact that the Feds are wasting your tax dollars investigating possible criminal fraud charges against Jayson Blair. Excuse me -- his career is over, he's humiliated, and, well, I kind of suspect the Times could afford a lawyer or two if it wants to sue him. Nobody outside the media universe has any reason to give a damn about this story, which is why I didn't want to write about it, but the usual suspects have made it a political story (America-hating liberal paper publishes black affirmative-action liar!) and now Limbaughnistas in heartland America think it's relevant to them. Do I think this White House would try to keep the pot stirred, try to stretch the story out, by nudging federal prosecutors to investigate this guy? Yeah, I do.
EMERGENCY MEETING CALLED AT OLD GRAY LADY; NEWSROOM IN CRISIS
Text of
Howell, Gerald and Arthur request that you join your newsroom colleagues at an open forum at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, to discuss the Jayson Blair matter and anything else you might have on your mind. The meeting will be held at the Loew's Astor Theater, the moviehouse just behind The Times on 44th Street at Broadway, across from Carmine's. Doors open at 2:15 p.m.
Please be sure to bring your Times i.d. card. No one will be admitted to the theater without their Times i.d.
You will be able to ask questions from the floor, or write them on cards that will be distributed at the door. In addition, we have set up an email address -- forum@nytimes.com -- where you can send questions, either in advance of the session or afterward.
On Wednesday morning, we will send out a separate email advising correspondents and bureaus outside New York how they may dial into the forum and listen to the session. Unfortunately, because of the short time available to set up the forum, people listening from a remote location will not be able to ask live questions. You may, however, avail yourself of the email address above. If you get questions to us before 2 p.m. EDT tomorrow, we will put them into the hopper. Otherwise, they will be answered later.
My company had a couple of high-profile dismissals in the past year, and we were summoned to several meetings like this. There was anxiety, but we heard reassurances, adjustments were made, and life went on.
I actually find Drudge somewhat useful these days -- lately he's been more a source of links than a gossipmonger. But this is just idiotic.
******************
Equally idiotic, I think, is the fact that the Feds are wasting your tax dollars investigating possible criminal fraud charges against Jayson Blair. Excuse me -- his career is over, he's humiliated, and, well, I kind of suspect the Times could afford a lawyer or two if it wants to sue him. Nobody outside the media universe has any reason to give a damn about this story, which is why I didn't want to write about it, but the usual suspects have made it a political story (America-hating liberal paper publishes black affirmative-action liar!) and now Limbaughnistas in heartland America think it's relevant to them. Do I think this White House would try to keep the pot stirred, try to stretch the story out, by nudging federal prosecutors to investigate this guy? Yeah, I do.
Bomb Injures Several in Yemeni Court
SAN'A, Yemen - A bomb exploded in a Yemeni court on Wednesday, wounding several people in the same place where a suspected al-Qaida militant was condemned to death last week for killing three U.S. missionaries, security officials said....
--AP
This is in addition to the Saudi Arabia car bombings.
Yeah, George Bush and His Mighty Flight Suit sure made all the world's evildoers cower with that Iraq war, didn't they?
SAN'A, Yemen - A bomb exploded in a Yemeni court on Wednesday, wounding several people in the same place where a suspected al-Qaida militant was condemned to death last week for killing three U.S. missionaries, security officials said....
--AP
This is in addition to the Saudi Arabia car bombings.
Yeah, George Bush and His Mighty Flight Suit sure made all the world's evildoers cower with that Iraq war, didn't they?
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
I don't want to write about Jayson Blair and The New York Times. All I'd ever want to say about the subject has already been said by Kevin Drum and, in his May 12 post "A Victory for Diversity," Roger Ailes. One guy screwed up royally and his bosses didn't grasp the extent to which this was so. End of story.
I do, however, want to stick a thumb in the eye of everyone on the right who has a Schadenfreude O.D. whenever something goes wrong at the Times. Andrew Sullivan, I gather, is so overstimulated by l'affaire Blair that he's practically levitating (I can't bring myself to read what he's written on the subject, which I'm given to understand is approaching the word count of Anna Karenina); earlier, Sullivan gloated about a recent decline in the Times's circulation. At Lucianne.com, whoever ghostwrites Ms. Goldberg's home page had a delusional fantasy this morningabout the Times:
When the left loses the New York Times - and it's only a matter of time - a blow will be struck that even the most well engineered and financed coup from the right could never accomplish. The Old Grey Lady is dying from inner rot and congenital hubris.
Er, no, it isn't. Here's the reality: The Times still has a huge circulation, as the Audit Bureau of Circulation notes; it's fat with ads and its readers are well heeled. And yesterday the print edition of the Times reported Nielsen/NetRatings numbers for online viewership of newspapers. Number 1? The Times, with 9,546,000 visitors in March '03, up 24% from the previous March, and nearly 2,500,000 ahead of the #2 Washington Post. For whatever it's worth, the Times will endure; Sullivan and Goldberg and their ilk just need to deal with it.
I do, however, want to stick a thumb in the eye of everyone on the right who has a Schadenfreude O.D. whenever something goes wrong at the Times. Andrew Sullivan, I gather, is so overstimulated by l'affaire Blair that he's practically levitating (I can't bring myself to read what he's written on the subject, which I'm given to understand is approaching the word count of Anna Karenina); earlier, Sullivan gloated about a recent decline in the Times's circulation. At Lucianne.com, whoever ghostwrites Ms. Goldberg's home page had a delusional fantasy this morningabout the Times:
When the left loses the New York Times - and it's only a matter of time - a blow will be struck that even the most well engineered and financed coup from the right could never accomplish. The Old Grey Lady is dying from inner rot and congenital hubris.
Er, no, it isn't. Here's the reality: The Times still has a huge circulation, as the Audit Bureau of Circulation notes; it's fat with ads and its readers are well heeled. And yesterday the print edition of the Times reported Nielsen/NetRatings numbers for online viewership of newspapers. Number 1? The Times, with 9,546,000 visitors in March '03, up 24% from the previous March, and nearly 2,500,000 ahead of the #2 Washington Post. For whatever it's worth, the Times will endure; Sullivan and Goldberg and their ilk just need to deal with it.
Remember ScrappleFace? The blogger who first called France and German the Axis of Weasels? Well, here's a new ’Face "joke" that might have made Hitler chuckle:
Rep. Waxman Amputates Nose After Jet Incident
(2003-05-09) -- Just a week after climber Aron Ralston had to cut off his own arm to save his life, Rep. Henry Waxman cut off his nose to spite his face.
The California Democrat amputated his prodigious proboscis during the aftermath of an incident involving a jet plane, an aircraft carrier and President Bush.
Details of the incident are sketchy, but Congressional insiders say it appears that Rep. Waxman thought he could make himself look better by self-amputation.
The Congressman has already been fitted with a prosthesis.
Yeah, we love jokes about those hook-nosed ... er, liberals....
Rep. Waxman Amputates Nose After Jet Incident
(2003-05-09) -- Just a week after climber Aron Ralston had to cut off his own arm to save his life, Rep. Henry Waxman cut off his nose to spite his face.
The California Democrat amputated his prodigious proboscis during the aftermath of an incident involving a jet plane, an aircraft carrier and President Bush.
Details of the incident are sketchy, but Congressional insiders say it appears that Rep. Waxman thought he could make himself look better by self-amputation.
The Congressman has already been fitted with a prosthesis.
Yeah, we love jokes about those hook-nosed ... er, liberals....
This story, if I remember right, made the front page of The New York Times last week:
President Bush and the National Rifle Association, long regarded as staunch allies, find themselves unlikely adversaries over one of the most significant pieces of gun-control legislation in the last decade, a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons.
...the White House says Mr. Bush supports the extension of the current law — a position that has put him in opposition to the N.R.A. and left many gun owners angry and dumbfounded.
The Times played this straight, but to me it looks like a con -- getting prominent placement in the Newspaper of Record for a story about Compassionate Conservative Bush (as opposed to Top Gun Bush) distancing himself from those bad old wingnuts.
A prominent D.C. strategist, apparently bucking for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, was shocked, shocked, at Bush's betrayal:
"This is a president who has been so good on the Second Amendment that it's just unbelievable to gun owners that he would really sign the ban," said Grover G. Norquist, a leading conservative and an N.R.A. board member who opposes the weapons ban. "I don't think it's sunk in for a lot of people yet."
And in case you wondered what the message of this was, the Times delivered it almost as if Karl Rove's fingers were on the keyboard:
Advocates on both sides of the issue say the White House appears to have made a bold political calculation:
--"bold"! The Bushies' favorite word to describe Bush! --
that the risk of alienating a core constituency is outweighed by appearing independent of the gun lobby, sticking to a campaign promise and supporting a measure that has broad popular appeal....
I say that this looks like a con because now there's this, from Reuters:
Delay Sees Assault Gun Ban Expiring in Congress
House Majority Leader Tom Delay, a proudly pro-gun Texas Republican, predicted on Tuesday the House will allow a 1994 assault weapons ban to expire next year.
"The votes in the House are not there to reauthorize (renew) it," DeLay told reporters.
If DeLay's right and the reauthorization dies in the House, this looks like triangulation Bush style -- instead of staking out a centrist position and genuinely advocating it, Bush fakes centrism while letting the hard right do what it wants (which is what he wants). And the Times fell for it.
President Bush and the National Rifle Association, long regarded as staunch allies, find themselves unlikely adversaries over one of the most significant pieces of gun-control legislation in the last decade, a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons.
...the White House says Mr. Bush supports the extension of the current law — a position that has put him in opposition to the N.R.A. and left many gun owners angry and dumbfounded.
The Times played this straight, but to me it looks like a con -- getting prominent placement in the Newspaper of Record for a story about Compassionate Conservative Bush (as opposed to Top Gun Bush) distancing himself from those bad old wingnuts.
A prominent D.C. strategist, apparently bucking for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, was shocked, shocked, at Bush's betrayal:
"This is a president who has been so good on the Second Amendment that it's just unbelievable to gun owners that he would really sign the ban," said Grover G. Norquist, a leading conservative and an N.R.A. board member who opposes the weapons ban. "I don't think it's sunk in for a lot of people yet."
And in case you wondered what the message of this was, the Times delivered it almost as if Karl Rove's fingers were on the keyboard:
Advocates on both sides of the issue say the White House appears to have made a bold political calculation:
--"bold"! The Bushies' favorite word to describe Bush! --
that the risk of alienating a core constituency is outweighed by appearing independent of the gun lobby, sticking to a campaign promise and supporting a measure that has broad popular appeal....
I say that this looks like a con because now there's this, from Reuters:
Delay Sees Assault Gun Ban Expiring in Congress
House Majority Leader Tom Delay, a proudly pro-gun Texas Republican, predicted on Tuesday the House will allow a 1994 assault weapons ban to expire next year.
"The votes in the House are not there to reauthorize (renew) it," DeLay told reporters.
If DeLay's right and the reauthorization dies in the House, this looks like triangulation Bush style -- instead of staking out a centrist position and genuinely advocating it, Bush fakes centrism while letting the hard right do what it wants (which is what he wants). And the Times fell for it.
I think Bush is going to benefit from the Saudi car bombings. I've seen a number of politicians attain Man on a White Horse status -- President Reagan, Mayors Koch and Giuliani -- and the public admires them even when the very evil they oppose has a moment of triumph. If a horrible, headline-grabbing crime happened on David Dinkins's watch, it was his fault; if it happened while Koch or Giuliani was mayor, the focus was on the strongman mayor's inspirational outrage, not on what might have been done to prevent the crime in the first place. The terrorists Reagan never vanquished and the budget deficits he worsened were never considered a black mark on his presidency because America knew he was on his steed and riding to the rescue, even if the rescue never came.
Bush is on the white horse now. I think the more terrorism there is, the more popular he's likely to become, at least in the immediate future. Fox News reports on a speech he gave today in Indiana:
"The ruthless murder" of American citizens and others "remind us that the war on terror continues," Bush told a rousing crowd. "These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate and the United States will find the killers and they will learn the meanings of American justice … We will be patient. We will be relentless."
And he added this, secure in the knowledge that his audience had no idea how absurd his bravado was:
"Anytime anyone attacks our fellow citizen, we'll be on the hunt and we'll find them and they'll be brought to justice. Just ask the Taliban."
Yeah -- just ask them.
Bush is on the white horse now. I think the more terrorism there is, the more popular he's likely to become, at least in the immediate future. Fox News reports on a speech he gave today in Indiana:
"The ruthless murder" of American citizens and others "remind us that the war on terror continues," Bush told a rousing crowd. "These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate and the United States will find the killers and they will learn the meanings of American justice … We will be patient. We will be relentless."
And he added this, secure in the knowledge that his audience had no idea how absurd his bravado was:
"Anytime anyone attacks our fellow citizen, we'll be on the hunt and we'll find them and they'll be brought to justice. Just ask the Taliban."
Yeah -- just ask them.
A small ray of hope, from this Ipsos-Reid poll conducted in mid-April (just after the Great Patriotic Saddam-Spanking War ended) and early May:
Attitudes toward reelection [of George W. Bush] have stayed the same among Republicans and Democrats. Among swing-voting Independents, however, attitudes change significantly after the conclusion of the shooting war in Iraq. The net change for those who would definitely vote to reelect George W. Bush is -6, and those who would consider someone else is +8....
A similar pattern exists with regard to generic Congressional vote....
Among Independents, the net change among those who would want to see the Republicans win control of Congress is -6 and among those who would want to see the Democrats win control of Congress, the gap is +4.
The percentage of Independents who currently would like to see the Republicans win control of Congress is roughly comparable with early March (18% versus 21% in early March). However, the proportion of Independents who would like to see the Democrats win control of Congress has increased 10 points since early March, when 21% of Independents favored the Democrats winning control of Congress.
Attitudes toward reelection [of George W. Bush] have stayed the same among Republicans and Democrats. Among swing-voting Independents, however, attitudes change significantly after the conclusion of the shooting war in Iraq. The net change for those who would definitely vote to reelect George W. Bush is -6, and those who would consider someone else is +8....
A similar pattern exists with regard to generic Congressional vote....
Among Independents, the net change among those who would want to see the Republicans win control of Congress is -6 and among those who would want to see the Democrats win control of Congress, the gap is +4.
The percentage of Independents who currently would like to see the Republicans win control of Congress is roughly comparable with early March (18% versus 21% in early March). However, the proportion of Independents who would like to see the Democrats win control of Congress has increased 10 points since early March, when 21% of Independents favored the Democrats winning control of Congress.
Andrew Sullivan writes this morning:
It's clear now that we have seriously under-estimated the difficulties of imposing order on post-totalitarian Iraq.
"We"? What do you mean "we"? Going into the war, the left knew -- and said repeatedly -- that the postwar period would be a huge challenge, in all likelihood a bigger challenge than winning the war. We were watching Afghanistan and we expected the administration to cut corners on nation-building because there are no Top Gun moments in nation-building. By contrast, the possibility of this apparently just occurred to the clueless Sullivan:
It's hard to read stories about continued looting in Baghdad or dangerous chaos in the hinterlands, without wondering if the administration is as committed to the difficult task of reconstruction as they need to be.
As did the possibility that the war would inspire more terrorism:
The papers don't tell us who was responsible for last night's bombings in Saudi Arabia, but we can be sure they aren't friends of the United States. Islamist anti-semitism has not abated; in Britain, it may be capturing a new generation of young immigrants.
Duh!
Idiot.
It's clear now that we have seriously under-estimated the difficulties of imposing order on post-totalitarian Iraq.
"We"? What do you mean "we"? Going into the war, the left knew -- and said repeatedly -- that the postwar period would be a huge challenge, in all likelihood a bigger challenge than winning the war. We were watching Afghanistan and we expected the administration to cut corners on nation-building because there are no Top Gun moments in nation-building. By contrast, the possibility of this apparently just occurred to the clueless Sullivan:
It's hard to read stories about continued looting in Baghdad or dangerous chaos in the hinterlands, without wondering if the administration is as committed to the difficult task of reconstruction as they need to be.
As did the possibility that the war would inspire more terrorism:
The papers don't tell us who was responsible for last night's bombings in Saudi Arabia, but we can be sure they aren't friends of the United States. Islamist anti-semitism has not abated; in Britain, it may be capturing a new generation of young immigrants.
Duh!
Idiot.
What's the death toll up to in the Saudi Arabia car bombings as I type this? Twenty?
Good thing we spent all that time, money, and blood depriving Saddam Hussein of weapons he either didn't have or did have but never intended to use against Western targets.
The standard right-wing line, as you know, is that terrorism went on its merry way during 1990s while Clinton ignored it and focused on diddling interns. Right-wingers love to produce lists of what they see as unavenged terrorist attacks from the Clinton years. But here's a list of untoward events that have taken place on George W.'s watch, courtesy of CNN and The Guardian. You probably didn't even know most of these took place, because they don't fit into the Bush-rode-in-and-cleaned-up-Dodge master narrative:
2003
May 1: A U.S. citizen was shot at a ship-repair facility in eastern Saudi Arabia by an unknown assailant, U.S. military officials said....
February 20: A Briton working for BAE Systems, Robert Dent, 37, was killed by a gunman who pulled up alongside his vehicle at a traffic light in Riyadh....
2002
September 29: A car bomb in Riyadh killed a German man living in Saudi Arabia....
June 20: British banker Simon John Veness died in Saudi Arabia when a bomb exploded in the car he had borrowed from a friend, British and Saudi officials said....
October 6 2001, Khobar
A pedestrian explodes a bomb at a shopping centre on the eve of US bombing strikes against Afghanistan. Michael Gerald, a US oil engineer, is killed. Another American, a Briton and two Filipinos are injured....
May 2 2001, Khobar
US chiropractor Gary Hatch is badly injured at a medical centre by a parcel bomb delivered by a courier. He loses his left arm and an eye.
March 15 2001 Riyadh
Accountant Ron Jones from Hamilton, Lanarkshire, and an Egyptian man suffer minor injuries from a bomb in a bin near a KFC outlet.
And now the car bombings.
Funny, I thought the point was that our devastating victory in Baghdad had scared the crap out of everyone who's ever considered messing with us.
Good thing we spent all that time, money, and blood depriving Saddam Hussein of weapons he either didn't have or did have but never intended to use against Western targets.
The standard right-wing line, as you know, is that terrorism went on its merry way during 1990s while Clinton ignored it and focused on diddling interns. Right-wingers love to produce lists of what they see as unavenged terrorist attacks from the Clinton years. But here's a list of untoward events that have taken place on George W.'s watch, courtesy of CNN and The Guardian. You probably didn't even know most of these took place, because they don't fit into the Bush-rode-in-and-cleaned-up-Dodge master narrative:
2003
May 1: A U.S. citizen was shot at a ship-repair facility in eastern Saudi Arabia by an unknown assailant, U.S. military officials said....
February 20: A Briton working for BAE Systems, Robert Dent, 37, was killed by a gunman who pulled up alongside his vehicle at a traffic light in Riyadh....
2002
September 29: A car bomb in Riyadh killed a German man living in Saudi Arabia....
June 20: British banker Simon John Veness died in Saudi Arabia when a bomb exploded in the car he had borrowed from a friend, British and Saudi officials said....
October 6 2001, Khobar
A pedestrian explodes a bomb at a shopping centre on the eve of US bombing strikes against Afghanistan. Michael Gerald, a US oil engineer, is killed. Another American, a Briton and two Filipinos are injured....
May 2 2001, Khobar
US chiropractor Gary Hatch is badly injured at a medical centre by a parcel bomb delivered by a courier. He loses his left arm and an eye.
March 15 2001 Riyadh
Accountant Ron Jones from Hamilton, Lanarkshire, and an Egyptian man suffer minor injuries from a bomb in a bin near a KFC outlet.
And now the car bombings.
Funny, I thought the point was that our devastating victory in Baghdad had scared the crap out of everyone who's ever considered messing with us.
In case you missed it, this ran in The Washington Post on Sunday:
GOP Eyes Tax Cuts as Annual Events
...White House officials have told allies they will attempt a new tax cut every year Bush remains in office, and there is already talk of another round. The ultimate target -- overhauling the tax code and sharply reducing the size of the government -- may never be achieved. But the incremental steps in that direction help to keep the Republican Party unified and the president in an unending debate with Democrats over the tax burden on Americans.
Coupled with the war on terrorism, which also is likely to continue indefinitely, the constant pursuit of tax reductions has the potential to give U.S. politics a new rhythm....
Paul Weyrich, a conservative with ties to Bush, said he was told at a White House meeting that "we intend to try to offer a new tax cut every year" -- a view top Bush aides have expressed to a number of business lobbyists. Grover Norquist, an anti-tax advocate who works closely with Bush aides, predicts: "You'll have a tax cut each year. I state it that way in all of the (White House) meetings, and I never get an argument."...
This presidency's sheer will is astounding -- and I don't see much evidence an effective countervailing force, now or in the near future. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
GOP Eyes Tax Cuts as Annual Events
...White House officials have told allies they will attempt a new tax cut every year Bush remains in office, and there is already talk of another round. The ultimate target -- overhauling the tax code and sharply reducing the size of the government -- may never be achieved. But the incremental steps in that direction help to keep the Republican Party unified and the president in an unending debate with Democrats over the tax burden on Americans.
Coupled with the war on terrorism, which also is likely to continue indefinitely, the constant pursuit of tax reductions has the potential to give U.S. politics a new rhythm....
Paul Weyrich, a conservative with ties to Bush, said he was told at a White House meeting that "we intend to try to offer a new tax cut every year" -- a view top Bush aides have expressed to a number of business lobbyists. Grover Norquist, an anti-tax advocate who works closely with Bush aides, predicts: "You'll have a tax cut each year. I state it that way in all of the (White House) meetings, and I never get an argument."...
This presidency's sheer will is astounding -- and I don't see much evidence an effective countervailing force, now or in the near future. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Monday, May 12, 2003
Judith Miller told us today that cobalt-60 was apparently found just west of Baghdad at a test range by the MET-Alpha team. Miller talked to "Drew," the MET-Alpha team's nuclear weapons expert. Drew was somewhat less than reassuring:
He said that, as far as he knew, neither his team nor the United States Central Command had a specific policy for handling radioactive material. Some of the material uncovered at former weapons sites in Iraq could be used to make "dirty bombs" designed to expose people to radiation, and some poses a health hazard to Iraqis and others exposed to it over time. Despite such threats, he said, nothing has been decided about what to do with the material.
Prior to the MET-Alpha team's arrival at the site where the cobalt-60 was apparently found, it was being subjected to the level of security the U.S. generally applies to anything in Iraq that doesn't involve oil:
There was no American security force when the inspection team members arrived at the sprawling test range, though they had been told there would be.
And afterward? Well, pretty much the same:
...the team recommended, as did the International Atomic Energy Agency when it surveyed the site, that the nuclear source in the area be secured, which has not happened yet.
Sleep tight now.
He said that, as far as he knew, neither his team nor the United States Central Command had a specific policy for handling radioactive material. Some of the material uncovered at former weapons sites in Iraq could be used to make "dirty bombs" designed to expose people to radiation, and some poses a health hazard to Iraqis and others exposed to it over time. Despite such threats, he said, nothing has been decided about what to do with the material.
Prior to the MET-Alpha team's arrival at the site where the cobalt-60 was apparently found, it was being subjected to the level of security the U.S. generally applies to anything in Iraq that doesn't involve oil:
There was no American security force when the inspection team members arrived at the sprawling test range, though they had been told there would be.
And afterward? Well, pretty much the same:
...the team recommended, as did the International Atomic Energy Agency when it surveyed the site, that the nuclear source in the area be secured, which has not happened yet.
Sleep tight now.
This makes me nuts:
Villagers suffer radiation sickness after looting nuclear power plants
Doctors fear that hundreds of Iraqis may be suffering from radiation poisoning, following the widespread looting of the country's nuclear facilities.
Seven nuclear facilities have been damaged or effectively destroyed by ransackers since the end of the war. Technical documents, sensitive equipment and barrels containing radioactive material are believed to have been stolen.
Many residents in villages close to the huge Tuwaitha Nuclear Facility, about seven miles south of Baghdad, were showing signs of radiation illness last week, including rashes, acute vomiting and severe nosebleeds.
As Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed last month villagers began looting barrels of the uranium oxide, known as "yellowcake", from the site, which they then emptied to use to store water, milk and yoghurt....
--Telegraph
Hundreds! Allowing this to happen is like dropping a huge bomb in a crowded neighborhood.
Mohammed Zaidan, the former chief agricultural engineer at Tuwaitha, said he had visited the nuclear site with Dr Hamid Al Bahli, a nuclear scientist, on April 7 when American troops were approaching from the south.
The soldiers, he said, assured the men they would secure Tuwaitha, but two weeks later they returned to find there were no American soldiers, only hundreds of people looting the facility and dogs rolling around in the contaminated uranium oxide.
"The soldiers had promised us they would secure the site but they did not and we wonder why," he said. "Perhaps it was because they always knew there were no real weapons there, despite all their claims. But, nevertheless, these materials represent a major health hazard and before long we may start to see people developing cancer and deformed babies because they did not stop the looting."
Saddam gassed people out of evil intent. Leadfooted America overthrew him with, we're told, good intent, then let chaos reign afterward, out of clumsiness or stupidity or calculation. Maybe the right-wingers are right and Bush's heart is pure, but funny thing -- people who die or become severely ill from being deliberately gassed are no deader and no sicker than people who nuked themselves as a result of "benign" neglect.
(Link from Cursor.)
Villagers suffer radiation sickness after looting nuclear power plants
Doctors fear that hundreds of Iraqis may be suffering from radiation poisoning, following the widespread looting of the country's nuclear facilities.
Seven nuclear facilities have been damaged or effectively destroyed by ransackers since the end of the war. Technical documents, sensitive equipment and barrels containing radioactive material are believed to have been stolen.
Many residents in villages close to the huge Tuwaitha Nuclear Facility, about seven miles south of Baghdad, were showing signs of radiation illness last week, including rashes, acute vomiting and severe nosebleeds.
As Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed last month villagers began looting barrels of the uranium oxide, known as "yellowcake", from the site, which they then emptied to use to store water, milk and yoghurt....
--Telegraph
Hundreds! Allowing this to happen is like dropping a huge bomb in a crowded neighborhood.
Mohammed Zaidan, the former chief agricultural engineer at Tuwaitha, said he had visited the nuclear site with Dr Hamid Al Bahli, a nuclear scientist, on April 7 when American troops were approaching from the south.
The soldiers, he said, assured the men they would secure Tuwaitha, but two weeks later they returned to find there were no American soldiers, only hundreds of people looting the facility and dogs rolling around in the contaminated uranium oxide.
"The soldiers had promised us they would secure the site but they did not and we wonder why," he said. "Perhaps it was because they always knew there were no real weapons there, despite all their claims. But, nevertheless, these materials represent a major health hazard and before long we may start to see people developing cancer and deformed babies because they did not stop the looting."
Saddam gassed people out of evil intent. Leadfooted America overthrew him with, we're told, good intent, then let chaos reign afterward, out of clumsiness or stupidity or calculation. Maybe the right-wingers are right and Bush's heart is pure, but funny thing -- people who die or become severely ill from being deliberately gassed are no deader and no sicker than people who nuked themselves as a result of "benign" neglect.
(Link from Cursor.)
I've posted some silly sex stuff today, but what Bob Herbert is writing about in this op-ed piece is no joke: A chemotherapy patient goes in for a breast examination and her doctor tells her another man will observe the exam; she later learns the man is not a doctor but a salesman, sues, and her case his dismissed because the judge claims she waived her right to privacy by not immediately objecting -- a judge now nominated to the federal bench by President Bush.
You know, Joycelyn Elders resigned late in 1994 and she's still a punchline in America. Why were Republicans able to make her a household name -- as well as Lani Guinier, whose alleged violation of American values involved abstruse voting schemes, not sex -- but most people, including most liberals, still don't know the name of this judge, Carolyn Kuhl? What the hell is wrong with the Democratic Party?
You know, Joycelyn Elders resigned late in 1994 and she's still a punchline in America. Why were Republicans able to make her a household name -- as well as Lani Guinier, whose alleged violation of American values involved abstruse voting schemes, not sex -- but most people, including most liberals, still don't know the name of this judge, Carolyn Kuhl? What the hell is wrong with the Democratic Party?
The L.A. Times noted last week that the tax-cut obsessives at the right-wing Club for Growth are running an ad in favor of the Bush economic "plan" linking Bush to JFK:
John F. Kennedy would be appalled at the company his name is keeping, his relatives have concluded.
The former president is mentioned and pictured in a television ad backing President Bush's efforts to persuade Congress to enact a large tax cut.
"President Kennedy cut income taxes and the economy soared," notes the ad, paid for by the Club for Growth, a tax cut advocacy group.
Maybe this was not the best timing:
President John F. Kennedy had an affair with a 19-year-old intern who traveled with him on official trips, according to a new biography of Kennedy.
"She had no skills. She could answer the phone," Robert Dallek, author of "An Unfinished Life," told "Dateline NBC" in an interview that aired Sunday. "Apparently, her only skill was to provide sexual release for JFK on those trips and maybe in the White House."
--AP
You know, we cut taxes once in the current administration and it did no good for the economy. However, the economy did wonderfully well during the Clinton years.
Maybe there's a cause-and-effect relationship between a soaring economy and Democratic presidents who fool around with young interns.
John F. Kennedy would be appalled at the company his name is keeping, his relatives have concluded.
The former president is mentioned and pictured in a television ad backing President Bush's efforts to persuade Congress to enact a large tax cut.
"President Kennedy cut income taxes and the economy soared," notes the ad, paid for by the Club for Growth, a tax cut advocacy group.
Maybe this was not the best timing:
President John F. Kennedy had an affair with a 19-year-old intern who traveled with him on official trips, according to a new biography of Kennedy.
"She had no skills. She could answer the phone," Robert Dallek, author of "An Unfinished Life," told "Dateline NBC" in an interview that aired Sunday. "Apparently, her only skill was to provide sexual release for JFK on those trips and maybe in the White House."
--AP
You know, we cut taxes once in the current administration and it did no good for the economy. However, the economy did wonderfully well during the Clinton years.
Maybe there's a cause-and-effect relationship between a soaring economy and Democratic presidents who fool around with young interns.
Yikes! Maureen Dowd cited it yesterday, but if you haven't read it, here's Lisa Schiffren's Wall Street Journal article about Sex God Bush. A condensed version:
...really hot...."hot," as in virile, sexy and powerful....I was mesmerized....stunning ..."He's a hottie. No doubt about it. Really a hottie. ... "Hot? SO HOT!!!!! THAT UNIFORM!" ..."Oh God, yes,"... "I mean, that swagger. George Bush in a pair of jeans is a treat to watch." ...all this heat ...
I'm so glad these people have, y'know, values, unlike us sickos on the left.
Oh, and by the way, this comes from The Wall Street Journal's "Taste" page.
****
In the Sex God Bush article, Schiffren sniffs that women on the snooty East Side of Manhattan get Bush's hunkitude, but on the liberal/nerd/pinko West Side, where she lives (as do I), the juices aren't flowing in sync with hers -- as she puts it, using wording that seems more appropriate for a Stalinist show trial, when she tried to discuss Bush's alleged attractiveness with Upper West Side women, "there was dissent."
Many of them still cite Bill Clinton and his allegedly penetrating intellect as more appealing.
Liberals make such a fetish of intellect.
It's impossible to respond to this -- especially from a former speechwriter for Dan Quayle.
But I do find myself thinking back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- specifically to Susan Sarandon saying, "I don't like men with too many muscles." Maybe we need to (partially) recast the movie, with George Bush as the dumb, lab-built macho man Rocky and Karl Rove as his creator, the transvestite mad scientist, who snaps at Sarandon in reply, "I DIDN'T MAKE HIM FOR YOU!"
...really hot...."hot," as in virile, sexy and powerful....I was mesmerized....stunning ..."He's a hottie. No doubt about it. Really a hottie. ... "Hot? SO HOT!!!!! THAT UNIFORM!" ..."Oh God, yes,"... "I mean, that swagger. George Bush in a pair of jeans is a treat to watch." ...all this heat ...
I'm so glad these people have, y'know, values, unlike us sickos on the left.
Oh, and by the way, this comes from The Wall Street Journal's "Taste" page.
****
In the Sex God Bush article, Schiffren sniffs that women on the snooty East Side of Manhattan get Bush's hunkitude, but on the liberal/nerd/pinko West Side, where she lives (as do I), the juices aren't flowing in sync with hers -- as she puts it, using wording that seems more appropriate for a Stalinist show trial, when she tried to discuss Bush's alleged attractiveness with Upper West Side women, "there was dissent."
Many of them still cite Bill Clinton and his allegedly penetrating intellect as more appealing.
Liberals make such a fetish of intellect.
It's impossible to respond to this -- especially from a former speechwriter for Dan Quayle.
But I do find myself thinking back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- specifically to Susan Sarandon saying, "I don't like men with too many muscles." Maybe we need to (partially) recast the movie, with George Bush as the dumb, lab-built macho man Rocky and Karl Rove as his creator, the transvestite mad scientist, who snaps at Sarandon in reply, "I DIDN'T MAKE HIM FOR YOU!"
In a post last week I forgot to include a link to the L.A. Times op-ed piece "Karl Rove: Counting Votes While the Bombs Drop" by James Moore, author of the Rove biography Bush's Brain. Here's the link. (I've also added it to the original post.) My apologies -- and thanks to the reader who pointed this out.
(Use "clipjoint" as user name and password if you can't read the article.)
(Use "clipjoint" as user name and password if you can't read the article.)
The Willie Horton ad did as much damage to Michael Dukakis and the Democratic Party as it was intended to do, but after the fact, at least, Democrats still had enough fight in them to denounce the ad and make its use a mark of shame. That's what should have happened with the ad used in the 2002 Georgia governor's race that linked Osama bin Laden and Saddam Huseein to then-Senator Max Cleland -- who, of course, lost three limbs in Vietnam and should never have had his patriotism questioned. The ad has been frequently denounced out here in Lefty Blogosphere Land, yet even out here I don't think I've ever seen anyone blamed by name for it, except, of course, Saxby Chambliss, the man it helped elect.
I learned from yesterday's New York Times Magazine that the man responsible for the ad is a GOP consultant named Tom Perdue -- the guy who got current Senate majority leader and likely future presidential candidate Bill Frist elected to the Senate for the first time in 1994 -- and that Frist had a hand in it, too:
Frist decided in 2000 to take the largest political gamble since he ran for office and to assume the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which controls every race across the country by recruiting candidates and disbursing millions of dollars...
While some Democrats claimed that Frist was calling into question their patriotism, Frist relied again on Perdue, who unleashed what was considered the most devastating ad of the cycle: it showed a picture of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein that eventually faded into the Democratic incumbent, Max Cleland, a Vietnam war hero who lost both his legs and his right arm in battle. Perdue told me that he sent each commercial he made to Frist and his staff to "let them be another focus group," and "they never told us not to do anything."
In '94, Frist and Perdue ran a fairly nasty campaign against Democrat Bill Sasser:
[Frist] dispatched Perdue to unleash a barrage of negative attacks.... His campaign ... tried to link Sasser to Joycelyn Elders, the black surgeon general who had spoken controversially about masturbation, and Marion Barry, the black mayor of Washington who had been caught smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend. ''We'd never seen anything like it,'' Sasser told me. ''I'd been in the Senate 18 years, and I'd never seen a campaign so vicious. Handbills would mysteriously appear in redneck areas showing me with Joycelyn Elders. He'd say while he was saving lives as a heart surgeon, I was busy sending Tennessee dollars to Marion Barry. It was clearly a racist attack. The slanders went on and on and on.''
The Democrats should have made the Cleland ads a national scandal, even after the election -- they could have, and should have, demounced them until the ads made the news and everyone in America saw them. Hell, if I were the Democratic presidential nominee in '04, I'd seriously consider picking Max Cleland as my vice presidential candidate. And it was the saintly Dr. Frist and his longtime hatchetman Perdue who were responsible. They should be held to account for them.
I learned from yesterday's New York Times Magazine that the man responsible for the ad is a GOP consultant named Tom Perdue -- the guy who got current Senate majority leader and likely future presidential candidate Bill Frist elected to the Senate for the first time in 1994 -- and that Frist had a hand in it, too:
Frist decided in 2000 to take the largest political gamble since he ran for office and to assume the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which controls every race across the country by recruiting candidates and disbursing millions of dollars...
While some Democrats claimed that Frist was calling into question their patriotism, Frist relied again on Perdue, who unleashed what was considered the most devastating ad of the cycle: it showed a picture of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein that eventually faded into the Democratic incumbent, Max Cleland, a Vietnam war hero who lost both his legs and his right arm in battle. Perdue told me that he sent each commercial he made to Frist and his staff to "let them be another focus group," and "they never told us not to do anything."
In '94, Frist and Perdue ran a fairly nasty campaign against Democrat Bill Sasser:
[Frist] dispatched Perdue to unleash a barrage of negative attacks.... His campaign ... tried to link Sasser to Joycelyn Elders, the black surgeon general who had spoken controversially about masturbation, and Marion Barry, the black mayor of Washington who had been caught smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend. ''We'd never seen anything like it,'' Sasser told me. ''I'd been in the Senate 18 years, and I'd never seen a campaign so vicious. Handbills would mysteriously appear in redneck areas showing me with Joycelyn Elders. He'd say while he was saving lives as a heart surgeon, I was busy sending Tennessee dollars to Marion Barry. It was clearly a racist attack. The slanders went on and on and on.''
The Democrats should have made the Cleland ads a national scandal, even after the election -- they could have, and should have, demounced them until the ads made the news and everyone in America saw them. Hell, if I were the Democratic presidential nominee in '04, I'd seriously consider picking Max Cleland as my vice presidential candidate. And it was the saintly Dr. Frist and his longtime hatchetman Perdue who were responsible. They should be held to account for them.
If you like conspiracy theories, go nuts now: A couple of weeks ago I pointed out the bizarre fact that Texas A&M University is building a campus in Qatar, where the U.S. has recently moved some military operations that used to be based in Saudi Arabia. Now I learn, from this New York Times article, that the president of Texas A&M is ... Robert Gates, former head of the CIA (under Bush the Elder).
I might find this truly ominous if the dominant people in the Bush II administration didn't seem to loathe Bush I. Nevertheless, it does seem worth noting....
I might find this truly ominous if the dominant people in the Bush II administration didn't seem to loathe Bush I. Nevertheless, it does seem worth noting....
Sunday, May 11, 2003
There still aren't nearly enough cops in Iraq to protect Iraqi citizens, or even to direct traffic, but Peter Maass reports this in The New York Times:
I was at the Oil Ministry on Thursday and noticed a convoy of a Bradley fighting vehicle and several armored Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns. They were escorting an S.U.V. with two civilians who work for KBR, an American oil-services company.
That's how the Americans who are supposed to fix Iraq travel around — in cumbersome convoys insulating them from the people they are supposed to help.
Lovely.
I was at the Oil Ministry on Thursday and noticed a convoy of a Bradley fighting vehicle and several armored Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns. They were escorting an S.U.V. with two civilians who work for KBR, an American oil-services company.
That's how the Americans who are supposed to fix Iraq travel around — in cumbersome convoys insulating them from the people they are supposed to help.
Lovely.
Here's something I didn't know:
On January 9, two days after Rumsfeld lyricized about [the volunteer military’s] virtues and got snooty about a peacetime draft, the Marine Corps, which reports to him, froze its entire active duty complement of 175,000 men and women in place for the next year; Marines who had completed their enlistments or who sought to retire after twenty years would be unable to do so. The Air Force has put a “stop-loss” order in effect that prohibits its officers and enlisted personnel from leaving active service. In the Army, the freeze is called “involuntary extension.”
...As of late March, over 212,000 reservists and Guard men and women had been activated. Though official Defense Department policy limits call-ups to twelve months, the Pentagon’s manpower demands have forced it to extend their tours for a second year.
Did we do this in other wars -- turn volunteer service into involuntary servitude? And remember, we're doing this while fielding an inadequate force to maintain stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, while we're also casting about for new wars to fight.
(I found this in John Gregory Dunne's review of Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead in the New York Review of Books. The review, unfortunately, is available online only to subscribers.)
On January 9, two days after Rumsfeld lyricized about [the volunteer military’s] virtues and got snooty about a peacetime draft, the Marine Corps, which reports to him, froze its entire active duty complement of 175,000 men and women in place for the next year; Marines who had completed their enlistments or who sought to retire after twenty years would be unable to do so. The Air Force has put a “stop-loss” order in effect that prohibits its officers and enlisted personnel from leaving active service. In the Army, the freeze is called “involuntary extension.”
...As of late March, over 212,000 reservists and Guard men and women had been activated. Though official Defense Department policy limits call-ups to twelve months, the Pentagon’s manpower demands have forced it to extend their tours for a second year.
Did we do this in other wars -- turn volunteer service into involuntary servitude? And remember, we're doing this while fielding an inadequate force to maintain stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, while we're also casting about for new wars to fight.
(I found this in John Gregory Dunne's review of Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead in the New York Review of Books. The review, unfortunately, is available online only to subscribers.)
Saturday, May 10, 2003
I like this Iraq War anecdote, from Michael Massing in The New York Review of Books:
A correspondent for the Los Angeles Times told me of a gung-ho colleague who, embedded with a Marine unit that was racing toward Baghdad, excitedly declared over the phone, "We're about to cross the Ganges!" When he was told that he must mean the Tigris, he said, "Yeah, one of those biblical rivers or other."
Massing also points out this, which I didn't know but should have guessed:
Six months before the [Iraq] war began, I was told, executives at CNN headquarters in Atlanta met regularly to plan separate broadcasts for America and the world. Those executives knew that [Paula] Zahn's girl-next-door manner and [Aaron] Brown's spacey monologues would not go down well with the British, French, or Germans, much less the Egyptians or Turks, and so the network, at huge expense, fielded two parallel but separate teams to cover the war. And while there was plenty of overlap, especially in the reports from the field, and in the use of such knowledgeable journalists as Christiane Amanpour, the international edition was refreshingly free of the self-congratulatory talk of its domestic one. In one telling moment, Becky Anderson, listening to one of Walter Rodgers's excited reports about US advances in the field, admonished him: "Let's not give the impression that there's been no resistance." Rodgers conceded that she was right.
CNN International bore more resemblance to the BBC than to its domestic edition—a difference that showed just how market-driven were the tone and content of the broadcasts. For the most part, US news organizations gave Americans the war they thought Americans wanted to see.
A correspondent for the Los Angeles Times told me of a gung-ho colleague who, embedded with a Marine unit that was racing toward Baghdad, excitedly declared over the phone, "We're about to cross the Ganges!" When he was told that he must mean the Tigris, he said, "Yeah, one of those biblical rivers or other."
Massing also points out this, which I didn't know but should have guessed:
Six months before the [Iraq] war began, I was told, executives at CNN headquarters in Atlanta met regularly to plan separate broadcasts for America and the world. Those executives knew that [Paula] Zahn's girl-next-door manner and [Aaron] Brown's spacey monologues would not go down well with the British, French, or Germans, much less the Egyptians or Turks, and so the network, at huge expense, fielded two parallel but separate teams to cover the war. And while there was plenty of overlap, especially in the reports from the field, and in the use of such knowledgeable journalists as Christiane Amanpour, the international edition was refreshingly free of the self-congratulatory talk of its domestic one. In one telling moment, Becky Anderson, listening to one of Walter Rodgers's excited reports about US advances in the field, admonished him: "Let's not give the impression that there's been no resistance." Rodgers conceded that she was right.
CNN International bore more resemblance to the BBC than to its domestic edition—a difference that showed just how market-driven were the tone and content of the broadcasts. For the most part, US news organizations gave Americans the war they thought Americans wanted to see.
I can't reproduce this for you, but the Republican Party arranged a photo op on Thursday that served, among other things, to help Rick Santorum reposition himself as "inclusive" -- and the print edition of The New York Times dutifully ran just the photo the GOP wanted.
The photo ran in yesterday's A section, accompanying this article about a Republican pleadge to spend nearly $1 million to refurbish the D.C. home of Frederick Douglass. GOP legislators went to Douglass's home and, what do you know, Senator Santorum just happened to be the most visible pol in Stephen Cowley's Times photo. Feel free to conclude that this was just a happy coincidence -- I don't.
The photo ran in yesterday's A section, accompanying this article about a Republican pleadge to spend nearly $1 million to refurbish the D.C. home of Frederick Douglass. GOP legislators went to Douglass's home and, what do you know, Senator Santorum just happened to be the most visible pol in Stephen Cowley's Times photo. Feel free to conclude that this was just a happy coincidence -- I don't.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Media Whores Online points out (with links from AP, ABC, the Christian Science Monitor, and Reuters) that Bush's Top Gun stunt last week replicated a campaign stunt pulled in 2000 by Vladimir Putin. Nice work!
The Dixie Chicks boycott seems to have played itself out. Right-wingers, amending their previous remarks, have hastily hopped aboard the new anti-anti-Dixie Chicks train. To hear them tell it, they thought all along that the anti-Chicks fatwa should be temporary.
Yeah, right.
God forbid they should stick with an opinion once it turns unpopular.
Yeah, right.
God forbid they should stick with an opinion once it turns unpopular.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: When conservatives can't think of anything else to criticize liberals or Democrats for, they just make stuff up, then announce that we're evil because of what they think we think. Dan Kennedy of The Boston Phoenix caught Rush Limbaugh doing this recently. Try to keep your jaw from dropping as you read this:
SHORTLY AFTER 2 p.m. last Friday, right-wing radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh was orating his way through a few news briefs. After dispensing with the first Democratic presidential debate, which was to be held two days hence, Limbaugh turned to a story that had nothing to do with politics — or so one would have thought.
He began by reading a wire story about Aron Ralston, the 27-year-old mountain climber who cut off his arm with a pocket knife after he’d been trapped by a boulder for several days while hiking in Utah. Bleeding profusely, Ralston rappelled down the side of a cliff and walked to safety.
"Can you imagine the pain, having the presence of mind to do all this? It is amazing," said Limbaugh, briefly sounding like a normal human being. And then he started riffing, coming to a conclusion that was almost as "amazing" as Ralston’s tale of survival.
"You know, this is one of these stories, this is one of these acts of human courage, that people are going to strive to associate themselves with," Limbaugh intoned. "Such as Democratic presidential candidates. This is the kind of story — you know, you might have this guy in the audience and claim he’s one of your supporters or whatever. We might even hear from John F. Kerry, for example, that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and this story has reminded him that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and therefore he knows the rigors of this engagement, this enterprise, and can relate to what this Colorado climber went through. I mean, they’ll stop at nothing to build bridges of relatability to these acts of courage. They can’t cite many of their own." Heavy, theatrical throat-clearing. Commercial break.
In a sense, it was the perfect storm of demented reasoning: 1) attack the Democrats for cowardice and exploitative behavior, even though said behavior exists only in Limbaugh’s own fevered imagination; 2) aim the brunt of the attack at Kerry, the one Democrat who is a decorated war hero; 3) stick in a snide reference to Kerry’s late discovery of his ethnic and religious background. Nor did Rush neglect the opportunity to say "Jewish" twice, even though he had to repeat himself nearly word for word in order to do so....
(Thanks to Lee for the link.)
SHORTLY AFTER 2 p.m. last Friday, right-wing radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh was orating his way through a few news briefs. After dispensing with the first Democratic presidential debate, which was to be held two days hence, Limbaugh turned to a story that had nothing to do with politics — or so one would have thought.
He began by reading a wire story about Aron Ralston, the 27-year-old mountain climber who cut off his arm with a pocket knife after he’d been trapped by a boulder for several days while hiking in Utah. Bleeding profusely, Ralston rappelled down the side of a cliff and walked to safety.
"Can you imagine the pain, having the presence of mind to do all this? It is amazing," said Limbaugh, briefly sounding like a normal human being. And then he started riffing, coming to a conclusion that was almost as "amazing" as Ralston’s tale of survival.
"You know, this is one of these stories, this is one of these acts of human courage, that people are going to strive to associate themselves with," Limbaugh intoned. "Such as Democratic presidential candidates. This is the kind of story — you know, you might have this guy in the audience and claim he’s one of your supporters or whatever. We might even hear from John F. Kerry, for example, that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and this story has reminded him that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and therefore he knows the rigors of this engagement, this enterprise, and can relate to what this Colorado climber went through. I mean, they’ll stop at nothing to build bridges of relatability to these acts of courage. They can’t cite many of their own." Heavy, theatrical throat-clearing. Commercial break.
In a sense, it was the perfect storm of demented reasoning: 1) attack the Democrats for cowardice and exploitative behavior, even though said behavior exists only in Limbaugh’s own fevered imagination; 2) aim the brunt of the attack at Kerry, the one Democrat who is a decorated war hero; 3) stick in a snide reference to Kerry’s late discovery of his ethnic and religious background. Nor did Rush neglect the opportunity to say "Jewish" twice, even though he had to repeat himself nearly word for word in order to do so....
(Thanks to Lee for the link.)
Polling Report informs us that, according to a new Pew poll, Bush's job approval rating has dropped seven percentage points in just under three weeks. The survey was conducted over five days; the Top Gun stunt and speech were on the evening of Day 2. Hey, I thought we were all "entertained and impressed" by the Top Gun stunt! Margaret Carlson said we were. So why didn't a five-day poll in which three of the days were post-Top Gun show an uptick in approval?
UPDATE: This is from Gallup:
Speech Does Little to Affect Viewers' Opinions on Iraq
Speech watchers, like the adult population in previous Gallup Polls, are somewhat cautious in their assessment of the Iraqi war's end. Fifty-four percent say the war is over, while a substantial proportion (44%) says it is not. Bush's declaration that major combat is now over in Iraq did little to affect speech watchers' views on this matter, as prior to his address, 52% believed the war was over. Bush mentioned weapons of mass destruction several times during the speech; still, speech watchers' views on this topic did not change as a result of the speech. Seventy-nine percent of speech watchers say the war is justified even if such weapons are not found, the same percentage of this group who said this prior to the speech.
Bush's speech did have a slight positive effect on speech watchers' opinions about U.S. policy in Iraq. Seventy-four percent of those who watched the speech say the Bush administration has a clear plan for what to do in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended. Prior to the speech, 64% of the group thought this.
So the Top Gun stunt and speech weren't transformational experiences, apparently -- except, perhaps, for pundits.
UPDATE: This is from Gallup:
Speech Does Little to Affect Viewers' Opinions on Iraq
Speech watchers, like the adult population in previous Gallup Polls, are somewhat cautious in their assessment of the Iraqi war's end. Fifty-four percent say the war is over, while a substantial proportion (44%) says it is not. Bush's declaration that major combat is now over in Iraq did little to affect speech watchers' views on this matter, as prior to his address, 52% believed the war was over. Bush mentioned weapons of mass destruction several times during the speech; still, speech watchers' views on this topic did not change as a result of the speech. Seventy-nine percent of speech watchers say the war is justified even if such weapons are not found, the same percentage of this group who said this prior to the speech.
Bush's speech did have a slight positive effect on speech watchers' opinions about U.S. policy in Iraq. Seventy-four percent of those who watched the speech say the Bush administration has a clear plan for what to do in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended. Prior to the speech, 64% of the group thought this.
So the Top Gun stunt and speech weren't transformational experiences, apparently -- except, perhaps, for pundits.
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